


Remus Lupin and the Prisoner of Azkaban

by JannaElizabeth93



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban - Freeform, so very very sad, very sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-06-01 08:34:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 22
Words: 107,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6510730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JannaElizabeth93/pseuds/JannaElizabeth93
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban from Remus Lupin's point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Visitor

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't the first HP fanfic I've written, but it's the first one I've posted.

Remus sighed as he shoved the key into the lock on the front door of his flat. The UWE Bristol students in the flat above his were having what sounded like another rager. It was a Friday night, so there was another rager. There was always another rager.

The late July air was balmy, even at half past two in the morning. Remus had just finished his eighth night in a row tending bar at the King’s Arms. This was the third King’s Arms Remus had worked in since the war ended, but it was the one he’d been at the longest. Eight months, he mused, as he shoved his door open with a creak of rusted hinges. He stepped over his own threshold, flicked on the switch that brought the dingy bulb in the sitting room to life, and let his keys clatter into the ceramic dish on the coffee table. That table and the threadbare couch into which Remus folded himself were the only pieces of furniture in the room, and he propped his boots up onto the table’s scuffed wooden surface with a sigh. The joints in his spine were beginning to ache again; he only had three days until the next full moon.

Two days, he realized with a jolt, as his gaze fell to the calendar tacked up on the wall next to the kitchen door. It was past midnight. July thirty-first.

Remus closed his eyes, the light from the dim but naked bulb glowing burnt orange through the skin of his eyelids. “Happy birthday, kiddo,” he muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face, his joints suddenly aching more than they had a moment ago.

He and Peter had been at the Order’s headquarters with Dorcas Meadowes, trying to sketch from memory the floor plan of the warehouse they had all broken into earlier that day, when James’s stag patronus came bounding through the wall. Peter had drawn his wand and yelped so loud that they almost didn’t hear the stag’s gasped message that Lily was in labor. Both of them had dropped their pencils and started for the door; Remus had one hand on the knob when he turned back to Dorcas, but she laughed and waved them out, telling them to give Lily her love.

They had Apparated right into the garden of the cottage at Godric’s Hollow; Remus had landed a split second before Peter and beat him to the door. They had burst into the sitting room to find James pacing a hole in the rug, Sirius’s eyes fixed on him from where he sat hunched over in Lily’s favorite armchair. They could hear her screams from the upper floor. “They say it’s supposed to sound like that,” James had muttered in lieu of a hello, running his hands through his hair as ever.

“Prongs—” Sirius had started, moving his hands from where he held them clasped to his mouth, but James had ignored him. Remus had taken a seat on the sofa across from Sirius, and they had traded a worried glance. Peter had chosen to lean against a wall; he had always had the hardest time dealing with group tension, and Remus hadn’t been surprised to see him start biting the nail of his left thumb.  
Remus had turned to Sirius again, unable to bear James’s anxiety. “Who’s up there with her?”

Sirius had slumped back in his seat. “Ted – Andromeda’s husband – is delivering the baby. Andi’s up there too, and so is Mary. This was all planned out as soon as they went into hiding.” Sirius had been cut off by another of Lily’s screams, and reflexively they had both looked up to the ceiling.

That had seemed to go on for hours, but it couldn’t have been longer than forty-five minutes before Lily’s screams died down and a thinner, higher wail slid its way down the cottage’s stairs. James’s head had jerked up, and Remus didn’t think he’d been breathing. Moments later, footsteps had creaked across the floorboards of the upstairs hall, and Mary MacDonald’s tired, elated voice called James’s name.

He had been out of the sitting room and up the stairs like a shot, Remus and the others close behind him, but when they all got up to the landing, Sirius, Peter, and Remus had hung back, watching the scene through the open door. Sirius had been holding a fist to his mouth again, this time to conceal the grin that had spread over half of his face.

James, for all his haste up the stairs, had entered the room he shared with Lily cautiously, as though he had been afraid he would break something by breathing too loud. Remus had seen over his shoulder as Andromeda had vacated her seat by Lily’s bed, gently touching Lily’s forearm as she had stepped away. Mary had also stood from her place at the other side of the bed and joined Andromeda by the wall. Walking as if he were underwater, James approached Lily and the tiny, snuffling bundle in her arms. Her face had been flushed, and there had still been a few stray tears leaking from her eyes, and long red tendrils had been stuck to her face with her sweat, but she had looked more beautiful than Remus had ever seen her.

Without speaking, James had sat on the edge of the bed, and brushed a hand over her forehead, clearing some of the hair from her face. Wordlessly, Lily had held out the bundle to him, and slower than Remus had ever seen him move, James took it. Andromeda had muttered something about watching the head, but James did not appear to have heard her, as he tucked the baby into his arms.  
“It’s a boy,” Ted had told them quietly, a smile in his voice, and James had gasped out a laugh, his eyes lit up with wonder, running the hem of the blanket between his fingers.

“We talked about naming him Hari,” Lily had murmured, more tears sliding from her eyes as she watched her husband meet their son. “After your grandfather.”

James had nodded, still not taking his eyes from his child. “We should Anglicize it, though. Like my parents did with me.”

Lily had frowned. “James–”

“He’s going to have a hard enough life,” James had interrupted her, looking up at her for the first time since his son had been placed in his arms. “We know this. We can make this bit easier, at least.”

Lily had watched him for another long moment, her eyes narrowed, before she had nodded once. “Harry?” she had murmured. “Harry James?”

James had gasped once, softly, before turning back and raising the bundle in his arms so that he could press his lips to his son’s forehead. “Yeah. I like that.”

Although nobody paid him any mind, Ted Tonks had nodded once and filled out the birth certificate he’d left lying on top of the dresser.

James had shifted the baby so that all his weight was supported in one arm and used his free hand to scrub at his face. “Hey. You lot,” he had said, speaking with a normal volume for the first time as he had raised his face to the doorway. “Get in here.”

Sirius had laughed and shoved his way into the room, Remus and Peter on his heels, and Sirius had ruffled James’s hair and leaned over to kiss Lily’s forehead. James had stood slowly and held the baby out to Sirius, whose laughter had immediately died as a faint look of fear crossed his face.

“You won’t break him,” Lily had huffed, her voice taking on that mix of exasperation and amusement it had always adopted around Sirius. “Go on.” James had quirked an eyebrow up at Sirius, who, after a moment, had hesitantly reached out his own arms.

As James had settled the baby into Sirius’s arms, Remus had looked over Sirius’s shoulder to see his face. His breath had caught in his throat. It was James’s face in miniature, the same nose, the same angled eyebrows, the same shape of the chin somewhere under the plump cheeks. But – Remus had gasped – when baby Harry opened his eyes, they were all Lily. Sparkling, green, almond shaped. Curious. Bright.  
Sirius had apparently been having the same thoughts. “He looks just like you, Prongs!” he had exclaimed on a laugh. “God help him.”

James’s lips had quirked up in a smile, and he had glanced over his shoulder at Lily, who had nodded. Remus had braced himself. He and Lily had talked about this a few months ago, and she had told him what was about to happen. He had known how close James and Sirius were, and he had also known that legally, he wouldn’t be able to fulfill the most important duty that came with the title, so he hadn’t been surprised. And if he had been hurt, it had only been a little. If, God forbid, anything were to happen to Lily and James, their child wouldn’t be safe with Remus, and he knew it.

So when James had laughed once, and asked Sirius to be godfather, Remus had smiled, and clapped Peter on the shoulder, and drawn him forward from where he had hung back from the group. Sirius had stammered his delight as he accepted, and had lifted the bundle that was Harry up to his eye level and pulled a face at him, and that was the last time that the six of them – James, Lily, Sirius, Remus, Mary, and Peter – had all been in the same room at the same time. Remus had gone undercover not long after that, and Mary had died, and Sirius had sold James and Lily to their deaths and killed Peter.

And now Harry was thirteen, Sirius was in Azkaban, and Remus was here.

Remus sighed, and dropped his feet from the coffee table. He still had half a bottle of scotch in the kitchen, if he could find the energy to reach into his pocket and draw his wand to summon it.

He was debating the pros and cons of exerting the effort it would require to summon the bottle when there was a gentle knock on his door. Immediately he tensed, rehearsing the speech he always had for landlords, promising that he would be able to pay rent in a few more days, just a few more days, before he remembered that it was almost three in the morning and not even the worst landlord was awake to harass a delinquent tenant at that time. But now he did draw his wand, because worse things than landlords came knocking at three in the morning, and stood to make his way to the door.

He hadn’t expected to see Albus Dumbledore looking through the peephole. Honestly, he had never expected to see Albus Dumbledore again.

Sighing, Remus stepped back from the door and rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. He was going to open the door, of course he was going to open the door, he just… needed a moment.

Finally he sighed, reached out, and turned the knob.

Dumbledore surveyed him over the threshold, peering over those half-moon spectacles. A tall, thin figure in emerald green robes, with a long white beard and a pointed hat, he looked incredibly out of place in the drab hallway of Remus’s Bristol walk-up. “Hello, Remus,” he said gravely. “May I come in?”

Remus swallowed. “Yes, sir,” he said as clearly as he could, and stepped aside to allow Dumbledore to pass him.

Dumbledore’s eyes swept once around the room before coming to rest back on Remus, who fidgeted uncomfortably. Albus Dumbledore had provided him with an opportunity for an education, for friends, for a life, for a chance to fight, that Remus thought he’d never have, and he would never be able to express his gratitude. But the last time he had seen Dumbledore, he had been twenty-one and Dumbledore was telling him that three of his friends were dead, that another was going to prison for it, and that the baby they had all loved so much was to be sent away, that Remus could never contact him, for the child’s own safety. Dumbledore hadn’t come to the funeral, saying that his presence would draw even more unwanted attention.

“You’ve been lying low,” Dumbledore observed, surveying Remus serenely.

Remus nodded, deliberately misunderstanding. “Working in Muggle pubs is easier. They tend not to notice which days I request off.”

To Remus’s surprise and relief, Dumbledore didn’t press the issue. Instead, he sighed. “Remus, I have some news. And I am sure you would rather have it from me than from the Daily Prophet tomorrow morning, but perhaps we should sit.”

A twinge of fear passed through Remus, and he did not move to sit. “What’s happened?”

Dumbledore sat without invitation on one end of the sofa and motioned for Remus to join him. Without taking his eyes from his old headmaster’s face, Remus perched on the edge of the cushion, his hands tensing into fists on his knees, the soreness he had felt earlier gone.

“There has been a breakout,” Dumbledore began quietly, “at Azkaban.”

Cold shot through Remus, through his veins. He did not blink.

Dumbledore continued, “Sirius Black vanished from his cell two hours ago. The dementors have been unable to find him. He left no trace as to indicate how he escaped.”

Those ice blue eyes were piercing him, but Remus said nothing. Slowly, he realized that a part of him was wondering what had taken so long. Sirius didn’t need a wand to transform; none of them had. The image of the great hulking black dog slipping through the bars of a cell flashed through his mind, and quickly he stifled it. He didn’t know that, not for certain. Sirius was a Death Eater; he probably knew Dark magic the likes of which Remus had never imagined, and had simply been biding his time.

“I see,” was all he said. Then, as the rest of his mind caught up, he asked, “Is Harry safe?”

The boy’s name stuck in his throat.

Dumbledore cleared his throat. “That is why I have come to you. In the last several days, according to the dementors, Black has been muttering in his sleep. The words are always the  
same: ‘He’s at Hogwarts.’” Dumbledore paused, and Remus swallowed down the bile rising in his throat. “We believe he will attempt to enter the school soon.”

Remus nodded once. “What do you need?”

“I have come to offer you a position,” Dumbledore said, spreading his hands in a gesture Remus well remembered. Remus felt his eyebrows inch up his forehead as Dumbledore continued. “Come teach, Remus. Defense Against the Dark Arts. And while you are with us, help us guard the castle. You know Black better than anyone else alive–” Remus flinched “—and I do seem to recall frequent use of secret passages and the like while you and your friends attended Hogwarts. You will have a teacher’s salary in addition to a stipend for your advice on additional security.”

Remus was already shaking his head, trying to ignore the way the walls were collapsing, shrinking the space, trapping him with the knowledge that Sirius was out. “I can’t, sir, you know I can’t.”

Now Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. “Why can’t you?”

“I’m…” Remus huffed a laugh through his disgust, “I’m not safe for them to be around. The students.”

Dumbledore smiled gently. “The Potions Master will be more than happy to supply you with Wolfsbane, Remus. I understand you have not yet had an opportunity to sample it, but I can assure you it works wonders.”

Remus hesitated, then nodded. Slughorn wouldn’t ask too many questions, at least, and he had already known what Remus was from Remus’s time as a student.

“In fact,” Dumbledore added, drawing a large gold pocket watch from within the folds of his robes, “I believe that there is a full moon on August second, is there not?” When Remus nodded stiffly, Dumbledore smiled once more. “Then I can ask him to brew it for you ahead of that event. You shall be able to transform into a harmless wolf on your office floor, and Madam Pomfrey will be on hand to–”

“Wait.” Remus held up his hand, ignoring the way his own voice sounded muffled through the haze in his ears. “Sir, I very much appreciate the offer, but I haven’t accepted yet. I don’t think…that is to say, I’m not sure I can be of much help to you.”

Dumbledore’s mustache twitched. “Remus, I cannot imagine how difficult this must be for you. But we need help keeping the students safe. And in any case, I do once again find myself short a Defense professor. I imagine you heard what happened with Gilderoy Lockhart?”

Remus nodded, biting back his incredulous question as to how Dumbledore could have ever hired Lockhart in the first place.

“I am not asking you to do anything with which you would be uncomfortable, Remus.” Dumbledore’s voice was quieter now. “I simply wish to be able to say that I have done everything I could to keep my students safe. Please. Come help us.”

Remus swallowed hard, his eyes meeting Dumbledore’s again.

Sirius had, after all, betrayed them first.

He nodded once.

“Excellent.” Immediately, Dumbledore stood and grinned. “Then we can expect you at the castle on Monday in time for dinner? Madam Pomfrey will administer the potion to you and you will have a private room in the hospital wing.”

Numb, Remus rose too, and forced his eyes to focus on his old – his current headmaster. Dumbledore extended his hand, and Remus shook it, feeling his face settle into the impassive mask he had perfected over the years. 

Dumbledore released Remus and stepped back to the door, and Remus opened it for him. Dumbledore took another moment to survey Remus over the edge of his spectacles before saying “It will be good to have you home, Remus.”

Remus forced himself to nod, unwilling to open his mouth, and Dumbledore smiled once more before stepping out into the hallway. Remus waited until Dumbledore reached the clattering lift before he shut the door, and immediately bolted through the sitting room to the bathroom, where he fell to his knees and vomited.

Eventually, exhausted and shaking, he uncurled himself from around the toilet and leaned back against the shower door, staring at the shadowy ceiling. He placed the heels of both hands to his eyes, pressing until he saw stars, and took a deep breath.

He was going back to Hogwarts.


	2. Of Potions and Poisons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Remus Lupin returns home

Remus’s first gasping breath as he Apparated into the Hogsmeade high street chilled his lungs, even in summer. The early Sunday morning mist still slunk its way over the cobblestones, and Remus shivered under his threadbare bomber jacket. Although he was supposed to meet with Poppy Pomfrey at noon, he had decided to come early just because Apparition – most magic, really – grew steadily more difficult as the day before a full moon wore on. He shifted his overnight bag, a futile attempt to alleviate some of the pressure on his already aching bones.

He hunched his shoulders and shoved his hands into his pockets as he trudged up Hogsmeade’s high street, resolutely keeping his eyes on the ground, away from the hulking shadow of the dilapidated house on the hill just barely outlined through the mist. He pushed open the door of the Three Broomsticks, relieved to find it empty except for a few pairs of old timers, poring over the Daily Prophet and absentmindedly stirring their coffee. Rosmerta, the sleeves of her cardigan pushed up around her elbows, was halfway through wiping down a row of tankards when Remus hesitantly approached the bar and took a seat. She instinctively glanced towards the movement, and then paused, narrowing her eyes as she tried to place him.

Then she gasped, tossed down the cloth she was using, and rushed around the bar, arms outstretched. “Remus Lupin, as I live and breathe!” Before Remus knew it, he was folded into a brief but fierce hug, and then she was gripping his shoulders and holding him out at arms’ length. “What on earth brings you here?”

Remus smiled and smoothed a hand along the bar top. “Dumbledore asked me to come up to Hogwarts,” he responded, deciding to only tell her part of the truth. Dumbledore wouldn’t have had time to consult the board of governors about hiring Remus yet – there was still plenty of time for it to fall apart.

“Well it’s lovely to see you again.” Rosmerta bustled back behind the bar. “What can I get for you?”

“Just coffee, please. And toast.”

Rosmerta eyed him before scribbling something down onto the pad of paper at her elbow, then tore the sheet off and reached back to pass it through the window to the kitchen. She then returned to face him, bracing her hands on the edge of the bar top.

“How have you been holding up?”

Remus opened his mouth, closed it, and then sighed. “Let’s not?” He didn’t want to talk about Sirius, especially not with someone who had known him as he had been once upon a time. “How has business been?”

Rosmerta didn’t press, and Remus sighed in relief. “Oh, the same,” she told him as she placed a coffee cup in a saucer in front of him. She gave it a quick tap, and together they watched the brown liquid bubble up. “The locals all year, and then one weekend a month for nine months, all hell breaks loose.” She slid the saucer towards him. Another flick of her wand, and a tray bearing a creamer and a pot of sugar drifted over. “We had the Minister of Magic in a few days ago, though.”

Remus paused, a spoonful of sugar hovering in midair over his coffee. “Really?” In the two years that Cornelius Fudge had been Minister of Magic, Remus had perceived him to be slightly bigoted and mostly incompetent. He was wondering how long it would take Fudge to remind the public that he had been one of the ministry officials to arrest Sirius.

Rosmerta shrugged and resumed wiping down the tankards. “He came in with what’s his name, that bearded bloke who heads the Aurors? The two of them and Minerva McGonagall, who obviously can’t stand either of them, were in here not two nights ago. Discussing new security measures for the school year, on account of – well,” she hurried on, attention fixed on the tankard in her hand, “I didn’t hear much; they came in right around supper time. But it looked serious.”

Remus poured cream into his coffee and watched the slowly swirling liquid grow lighter. “They’ll probably station Aurors at the gates.”

“I imagine so.” Rosmerta turned back towards the kitchen to fetch the plate that had just been placed on the window ledge. “I won’t mind. It’ll be good for business.” She set the fully laden plate down in front of Remus. “Full English,” she said briskly. “On the house.”

“Rosmerta…” Remus started to argue, but her glare silenced him. His stomach rumbled at the scent of the bacon, and he swallowed. “Thank you.”

“’Course.” She smiled. “The post-church crowd will be in any moment, so here.” She pointed her wand at a copy of the Daily Prophet that had been abandoned on a vacated table, and it folded itself up neatly before soaring over. “To hide behind.”

As she spoke, the door to her pub opened, and broad streaks of sunlight splashed their way across the bar before the shadows of cheerfully babbling families blocked them out. In the distance, Remus could hear pealing church bells. Rosmerta patted his hand before sidling down the bar to take the order of a young father whose small son was hanging off his arm. Remus sipped his coffee and opened the paper, ignoring the gaunt figure glaring at him from the cover.

***

Hours later, Remus, hands once again tucked into his pockets, eased out the front door of the Three Broomsticks, Rosmerta’s order to “keep in touch” trailing after him. No one but she had recognized him, thank goodness, but the patrons had really only one topic of conversation on their minds, and Remus had left when a woman had clucked her tongue and loudly wondered how no one at Hogwarts had realized Sirius Black was a budding Death Eater. 

He sighed as he rounded a bend in the street and suddenly there was Hogwarts, soaring above him. Off to the left, he could just see Gryffindor tower disappearing slowly as he walked. He asked himself again what he thought he was doing, coming back here as a teacher. 

Walking slowly now, to avoid aggravating the ache in his joints, Remus hiked up the road to the Hogwarts gates. The twin gargoyles loomed on either side of the wrought iron, staring off at some fixed point over Remus’s head. He drew his wand and tapped the massive padlock that chained the gates shut, muttering the incantation Dumbledore had included in his letter last night. With a groan, the gates wrenched themselves open, and Remus forced himself to take a deep breath as he began the long, solitary walk up the front drive. 

The direct, official path to the castle’s front doors was less familiar than any number of other routes -- secret passages underground, shadowed walks along the wall, wooden doors into low-hanging hallways on the ground floor. His lungs tightened and he could hear their laughter, see James loping ahead of him as he loosened his tie, feel Sirius nudge him with his shoulder to get Remus to join in a joke, smell the smoke from Peter’s cigarette.

As he passed the gravel pathway that led to Hagrid’s hut, Remus swallowed down the memories and huffed a relieved sigh that the gamekeeper was nowhere in sight.

The entrance hall doors were propped open, and sunlight streamed onto the stone floor as Remus stepped inside, inhaling the marked dusty air of the entrance hall. His footsteps echoed as he walked towards the grand marble staircase, but he paused by the door to the Great Hall.  
It looked the same -- Gryffindor and Hufflepuff to the right of the entryway, Ravenclaw and Slytherin to the left, and the High Table, anchored by Albus Dumbledore’s stately carved chair. The enchanted ceiling was a clear blue with only the occasional scudding cloud. Remus fisted his hand and rested it for a moment against the great wooden door before he moved on.

It occurred to Remus halfway to the fourth floor to be proud of the way habit had kicked in, enabling him to successfully jump all the trick steps. Most of the portrait frames he passed were empty, but he did receive small waves from an Impressionist piece of a group of middle-aged witches. He resolutely avoided looking out any of the west-facing windows, not wanting to see the way the sun glinted off the Quidditch pitch. 

When he arrived at the hospital wing, he found the ward deserted. He stood transfixed, watching the dust motes dance about in the air, and then called out, “Hello?” He slowly made his way along the familiar line of white bedsteads, the sound of his footfalls bouncing off the stone floor.

A door at the far end opened, and there was Poppy Pomfrey, smoothing down her apron as she bustled towards him. “Remus Lupin.” She smiled as she reached him and opened her arms to him.

Hesitantly, Remus accepted her hug. He had always had the feeling that Madam Pomfrey had wanted to like him much more than she let herself. She might have suspected his quiet resentment toward her, the Healer who couldn't fix him, who could only hide him from the world so they wouldn't see his pain.

She released him and stood back so as to inspect him. “You look peaky. Come, through here.”

Adjusting the strap of his bag over one shoulder, Remus followed her the rest of the way down the ward to a private room. Madam Pomfrey withdrew a ring of keys from her pocket and unlocked the door, then stood by so that Remus could enter. It was larger than he’d expected. He set his bag down on the bed. The room’s one window was up close to the ceiling and north-facing. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he turned back to face the matron.

“Well,” she said briskly, “he should be here any moment with the potion. What do you know about it so far?”

Remus swallowed back the retort that bubbled up in his throat. He knew that asking to sample the potion required that Remus publicly name himself a werewolf, and that Damocles Belby had legally protected the recipe so that it could not be reproduced by other potions houses. He knew, also, that the ingredient wolfsbane was so rare and so expensive that it would have been impossible for most werewolves, many of whom were deep in poverty, to reproduce themselves. He knew all of this, but he merely said, “Usually that it has to be taken daily for the week leading up to the full moon, but that there’s a recommended difference the first time someone try it.”

The matron nodded. “Yes, only one dose the first time in case -- well, there are some documented bad reactions to the ingredients.”

“Yes,” Remus responded, feeling his lips twitch up wryly. “When a potion’s main ingredient is a poisonous plant, I imagine that tends to happen.”

“Yes, well.” Madam Pomfrey cleared her throat. “I’m sure -- oh, here he is.” Remus could hear the relief in her voice as the sound of footfalls reached them through the open door. Remus shifted his weight and fixed his face into what he hoped was a pleasant, neutral expression with which to greet Horace Slughorn.

But the cloaked figure who stepped past Poppy Pomfrey into the room wasn’t Horace Slughorn. The air left Remus’s lungs in a rush as he stared into the expressionless face of Severus Snape.

Madam Pomfrey greeted him with a cheery “Good afternoon, Professor Snape!” but Remus heard the words as through a thick fog. He tried to master himself, to control his shock. Snape stared back at him, expressionless, unchanged since that last sunny day in June on the Hogsmeade Station platform. Remus had taken a seat on top of James’s trunk, laughing at Sirius catching Peter round the neck and ruffling his hair. He’d looked up over Lily’s shoulder, had seen Snape watching them -- only for a moment -- before turning back towards his own friends. Barty Crouch Junior. Hercules Flint. Regulus Black. All had surfaced as Death Eaters within the year.

Remus realized that Madam Pomfrey was looking at him expectantly, and he cast around for his voice. “Professor?” he asked. Even to his own ears, it sounded like a croak. 

Snape smirked as Madam Pomfrey answered. “Oh yes. After Horace Slughorn retired seven -- eight, actually -- eight years ago, Professor Dumbledore brought Professor Snape in as potions master. He’ll be making the Wolfsbane Potion for you, Remus.”

Remus swallowed hard and met Snape’s cold black eyes, and thought of all the times that he had done nothing as Sirius and James and Snape had tried to kill each other in school. He thought of that night when he had been sixteen and transformed, and how Padfoot had laughed and said Snape was coming, and Prongs had become James again, and the monster that was Remus had smelled the flesh of two humans and wanted to kill. He thought of of the very real possibility that, if the Wolfsbane Potion was made even slightly incorrectly, the poison in it would kill the drinker. He forced himself to nod.

Finally Snape set the goblet that Remus had just noticed onto the low cabinet beside the door. “You’ll need to take it immediately, Lupin. The moon will rise shortly before eleven tonight. We wouldn't want to be caught off guard.”

“No,” Remus rasped. “We certainly wouldn't.” 

Snape held his gaze for a moment longer before turning on his heels and striding back out into the main ward without another word.

Remus stared at the goblet of faintly smoking potion. He’d heard rumors, of course, around the end of the war, that Dumbledore had vouched for Snape, said that Snape had been spying for him, but he’d assumed that Snape had left for the Continent like so many other former Death Eaters who had managed to claim asylum. But Dumbledore had him at Hogwarts. Teaching.  
Remus sighed as he stepped forward to pick the goblet up. If Snape wanted to kill him, he’d certainly had the chance during the war.

“From what I understand, it’s going to burn,” said Madam Pomfrey quietly. “I would drink it all in one go, if you can manage.”

Remus nodded, closed his eyes, raised the goblet to his lips, and threw his head back.

Molten fire clawed at the inside of his throat, his skin was melting, he couldn’t breathe -- 

He felt himself fall sideways, his shoulder roughly catching on the stone wall as the empty goblet clattered to the floor. He coughed, hard, choking back the urge to vomit. His eyes streamed, his joints were screaming. He was aware of Poppy Pomfrey somewhere nearby, her hands on his arm, anxiously calling his name. The liquid burned like acid as it slid down his throat, and he could feel it oozing its way through his body, inflaming his joints.

Three deep, gasping breaths later, he was able to master himself, and he straightened up, panting. “I’m all right. I’m fine.” 

Eyes wide with concern, Madam Pomfrey placed her fingers on the pulse point in Remus’s neck and stared at the clock on the wall for a few moments. Remus tried to regulate his breathing as she counted. Finally she said, “Well, your pulse is normal. A bit high, but that’s to be expected.” She pointed her wand at the goblet on the floor and it flew up into her hand. “There’s nothing to do now but wait, I suppose. Remus…” She hesitated. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to… well…”

Remus nodded. “You’re going to have to lock me in at moonset. Probably some charms to reinforce the door?” Madam Pomfrey shifted her weight and looked down at the floor. Remus shrugged. “It’ll beat a tiny shack at the edge of the village.”

“Yes. Well.” Madam Pomfrey smoothed her apron, still not looking at Remus. “I’ll leave you be, then. I will see you later?”

“Of course. Thank you,” he added, and now she finally did face him, her smile relieved. She patted his arm before moving to the door, leaving it open and letting Remus alone with his thoughts. 

He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck and reached for his bag. He withdrew a Muggle spiral-bound notebook in which he had scribbled the beginnings of lesson plans, and tucked it under his arm before leaving the room and heading back up the ward. 

He had a few hours; he may as well go to the library and decide what textbooks he was going to assign his NEWT-level students.

***

The pale pink light slid its way under Remus’s eyelids and he groaned, shifting his forearm to shield his eyes. Instinctively he moved to roll onto his stomach and realized he was lying on a cold flagstone floor. Blearily he blinked his eyes open.

Dust motes danced back and forth in the new dawn sunlight that leaked through the one window in his private hospital wing room. The clock told him that it was just past five in the morning.

Cautiously, Remus stood and stretched. He was sore, to be certain, and tired, but he didn’t feel like he was used to feeling -- that his limbs had been ripped off and roughly stitched back onto his torso. He rolled his neck once, gingerly, waiting for the sharp sting of a pinched nerve. None came.

He exhaled and closed his eyes again. It must have worked. He didn’t recall anything from the night before, but it must have worked.

Dreamlike, he pulled on the pair of shorts he’d left out before making his way to the mirror hanging above the washbasin that stood in the corner. He inspected his reflection closely -- dark skin, face, chest, shoulders, neck -- and found none of the self-inflicted scratch marks he’d come to expect. Nothing.

He braced his hands on the edge of the sink and bowed his head, feeling the prickling in the backs of his eyes. One deep breath. Another. Something in his chest was expanding, a lightness he had not felt in a very long time.

Eventually, he scrubbed a handacross his eyes, turned back to his bag, and dressed. He had just closed the bag up again when he heard someone tapping at the door. “Remus?” Albus Dumbledore’s voice called.

Remus cleared his throat. “Yes, sir.”

“May I come in?”

Remus opened his mouth to answer, then hesitated. “I’m… not sure what charms Madam Pomfrey used, sir.”

He thought he heard Dumbledore chuckle, and then there were a series of taps from what Remus assumed was Dumbledore’s wand against the door. Finally, the lock clicked and the door swung open. Dumbledore waited for Remus to invite him in before crossing the threshold.

Remus made himself straighten his back as the headmaster surveyed him over his half-moon spectacles. “How are you feeling, Remus?”

“Good,” Remus answered, his voice betraying his surprise. “Really good, sir. Thank you. I don’t… remember any of it, but I’m not in pain anywhere near as bad as usual.”

Dumbledore nodded approvingly. “I am very glad to hear it. All accounts indicate that your awareness of the night you pass will come back as your body grows accustomed to the potion.” He smiled. “I am sorry that I did not get a chance to speak with you yesterday before moonset; I was in London. Among other things, I met with the board of governors.”

Remus folded his arms across his chest so that Dumbledore couldn’t see his fists tighten.

“They have cleared me to hire you,” Dumbledore said, eyes twinkling. Remus sighed in relief, only now allowing himself to feel how badly he had wanted this. “I didn’t feel it necessary to tell them about any health concerns you have, but I will need to inform the rest of the staff.”

Remus shrugged and nodded. That was no surprise, really, and as most of the staff had been teaching when he had been a student, they already knew.

“I received your owl yesterday,” Dumbledore continued. “And I am more than willing to approve your lesson plans. Well done, Remus. Truly.”

Remus smiled, secretly quite proud of himself. Most of his lesson plans had been original, given that the two most recent occupiers of the post that was now his had been a Death Eater and a fool, respectively.

Dumbledore went on, “I imagine you need time to settle your affairs in Bristol. The term for faculty officially begins on August fifteenth, which is when our first staff meeting will be held here at the castle. You will not be expected to move into your quarters here until September first, however, should you choose not to.”

“Of course, sir.”

Dumbledore walked forward and extended his hand for Remus to shake. Remus took it, and suddenly he was eleven years old again, and they were in the Great Hall, Dumbledore looking down at Remus from the High Table, applauding as Remus was sorted into Gryffindor.  
Dumbledore had a history of believing in Remus when few other people would have.

“Very well.” Dumbledore released Remus’s hand. “I look forward to seeing you again next Sunday, Professor Lupin.”

Remus’s breath caught in his throat, but he felt himself grin so wide he thought his face would split. Dumbledore returned his smile and turned to leave.

“Sir,” Remus called out before he could stop himself, and Dumbledore turned expectantly. “You could have… You didn’t tell me that Horace Slughorn had retired.”

Dumbledore’s face turned grave. “No, I did not. I am aware of the history between yourself and Severus, both personal and political, but he has assured me he can put it behind him. And I admit that, in my selfishness, I did not want to risk your refusing to come back to Hogwarts.”

Remus chewed on the inside of his mouth before he answered. “I understand. I just…”

“I have vouched for Severus Snape, Remus. He provided me with some information --” Dumbledore cut himself off, staring at Remus intently. “He volunteered himself as a spy for me during the war, at great personal risk. I trust him. I will need that to be enough for you.”

Understanding that it was not a request, Remus nodded. Dumbledore had trusted him as well, hadn’t he? Remus owed him for that. “Yes sir.”

Dumbledore nodded once more, smiled, turned, and left the room. Remus slowly moved to the door and watched his headmaster stride briskly up the ward as the room slowly brightened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea how to tag things on this website but Linds and Sriram both acted as betas on this one and I love them for it.


	3. Of Pubs and Faculty Meetings

The bar was loud and smoky -- the UWE Bristol students had been out of classes just long enough for them to become restless, the jobs and internships and visits from family not enough to hold their attention for the last month before they had to go back to school. Remus eyed a particularly raucous table of them over the bartop; the last thing they needed was some sort of fight to break out between these kids and the homeported sailors from the shipping yards. 

“Oi!”

Remus grabbed the cloth he’d been using to wipe down the bar and flung it over his shoulder as he turned to the familiar call. “Pint?”

“Aye. Lager,” said the grizzled dockworker who had hailed him. Remus nodded, took the man’s money, and turned to reach for a glass. He put it under the tap to fill with one hand and with the other reached for the till. As he turned to place the pint down on the bartop, movement by the door caught his eye. He stiffened. Isaac, expertly carrying two stacked crates of bottled import, was resolutely not looking towards the bar.

Remus’s gaze followed Isaac to the back room, and then he threw his cloth down onto the bar. “Liz,” he called to the barmaid just making her way back from clearing the table. “I’m going to have a smoke break.”

She raised her eyebrows at him and brushed a clump of her vibrant green hair from her face. “You don’t smoke.”

“How about that?” He slipped past her and made his way to the back.

Isaac was alone in the back room, marking up an inventory form on a clipboard as he inspected the crates and casks. He ignored Remus when Remus approached him and leaned against the shelving.

Finally, Remus broke the silence. “How’d you find out?”

Isaac snorted without looking up. “Olivia asked me if I could cover your shifts until she found a replacement.”

Remus sighed. He and Isaac had been doing whatever they had been doing -- seeing each other, shagging, making timid attempts at a relationship -- for three months now, and he’d been trying to figure out his breakup line even before Albus Dumbledore had offered him a position at Hogwarts. He would always have to leave eventually, he was used to it, but now, as Isaac obstinately stiffened his shoulders and kept taking inventory, Remus found himself utterly unprepared.

“I was going to tell you.”

“Oh really?” Isaac bit out. “When exactly? Olivia says your last day is next Monday, Remus. Were you going to leave me a note?”

“No! I was --” Remus huffed, dragging his hand through his hair and staring about the room. “I was going to tell you in person. I just didn’t know how.”

“Well, tell me now,” Isaac snapped, tossing the clipboard onto one of the crates and turning to face Remus fully. A gay black man who had grown up in Bristol’s graffiti subculture, Isaac had perfected defiance as an art form, and Remus felt the full force of it now. “Scotland? What the hell, Remus? You didn’t think to talk to me before making that decision? You’re just leaving?”

“We’re not -- we haven’t been --” Remus started, then closed his mouth. Any end to that sentence would have been rude at best, dishonest at worst. “I’m sorry,” he settled on. “This is something I have to do.”

Isaac scoffed and turned his back again, hefting a keg into his arms and shelving it properly. Wordlessly, Remus moved to help him. Isaac did not object as Remus worked with him to clear the inventory. When they were finished, Remus said quietly without looking at him, “I really am sorry, Isaac. I’m used to moving around a lot. I’m never any good at this part.”

“Right, well,” Isaac muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. “Can you at least tell me why you’re going?”

“I… a friend from home asked for my help with something,” Remus answered slowly, knowing he couldn’t tell the whole truth but wanting to, desperately. “He did a lot for me when I was a kid, and I can’t tell him no now.”

Isaac nodded, dropping his hand to his side. “You coming back?”

The muscles in Remus’s jaw stiffened. “Probably not, no.”

“Oh.” Isaac busied himself with filing the inventory form. “Well… Good luck then.”

“Isaac…”

“You should stay over this weekend, though,” Isaac mumbled, his attention still fixed on the filing cabinet. “Before you go.”

Remus forced himself to smile, and nodded. “I’d like that.”

“Good.” Isaac cleared his throat and started for the door, Remus trailing close behind. “You know, this is actually the first time I’ve heard you talk about anything from when you were a kid.”

“Yeah,” Remus sighed,. He didn’t elaborate. Isaac, after one last, searching look at him, didn’t press; the two of them went back out to the bar.

***

Remus stood on the pavement with his hands shoved into his pockets and sighed as he surveyed the little cottage in Upper Flagley. He had only been to this cottage once, even though his father had lived here nearing on fifteen years.

Remus had realized, almost at the last minute, that he couldn’t very well move to Scotland for at least ten months and not tell his father. Lyall Lupin and his son kept only sporadic contact, but Remus usually remembered to tell his father where he was moving to, always bracing himself for Lyall’s entreaties that Remus come home, stop living hand-to-mouth, let his father help him.

Reminding himself to take his hands out of his pockets, Remus made his way up the walk to the front door. He smoothed his hair down one more time before he knocked.

When Lyall opened the door, Remus fixed a smile on his face. “Dad.”

Lyall’s eyes widened in shock for a moment before he managed to school his expression. “Remus! My goodness, it’s wonderful to see you, son! Come in, come in!”

He ushered Remus over the threshold. Remus went hesitantly, trying not to betray his curiosity as he looked around. Lyall, a new widower, had settled here after the war had ended, and had invited Remus to live with him. Remus had been unable to bring himself to do it, however, and had moved to Muggle Northern Ireland. Nobody had noticed one more haunted figure keeping to himself in the midst of The Troubles.

Lyall led Remus to the sitting room, and Remus checked on the threshold at the sight of the large painting over the hearth.

His father saw him looking. “I had it commissioned,” he said quietly. “On what would have been our thirtieth anniversary.”

It was well done, a small part of Remus’s brain was able to acknowledge. The center of the painting was Hope Lupin, eyes sparkling as they always had in life. Her black skin gleamed in the sunlight floating through the curtains of the sitting room, and she smiled gently down at the boy in her lap. This version of Remus, a child of four or five, had skin much lighter than Remus’s had ever been in reality, so light it almost matched his father’s, and he gazed calmly and obediently out at the sitting room. The figure of Lyall stood proudly behind them both, his hands on Hope’s shoulders. 

After Remus had gotten himself bitten, he and his parents had never lived in one place longer than a year, so his mother’s career as an assistant in an insurance office was effectively over. As she wasn’t magical, she hadn’t grown up in a world that gave her context for her son’s condition, but she had loved him fiercely, and her vivid imagination had provided Remus with dozens of fantastical stories of a world in which he belonged. He stared up at this image of her for another long moment before Lyall gestured for him to have a seat on the sofa.

“Well,” Lyall began, settling himself in the armchair nearest the empty fireplace. “What brings you here, son? How’s life in Bristol?”

Remus braced himself. “Actually, Dad --”

“Oh come now,” Lyall scoffed, “you can’t be moving again. It hasn’t even been a year, son!”

“Well,” Remus said through gritted teeth, “I’m actually leaving because I got a job offer.”

Immediately, his father leaned forward, interested. “Really? That’s fantastic! Where?”

“Hogwarts. The Defense Against the Dark Arts post.”

Lyall stared. “How? I mean,” he hurried, “I’m so pleased and proud of you, son, but… I didn’t even know you had applied.”

“I didn’t.” Remus shifted awkwardly. “Dumbledore came and offered it to me.”

“Dumbledore… on his own? But --” Remus watched as the realization dawned on Lyall’s face. “Is this about Black? And the Potter boy? He’s old enough to be a student now, isn’t he?”

Remus covered his wince. “Something to do with that, I think, yeah.” Hoping to move his father off the topic, he quickly said, “How are things at the Ministry?”

Lyall glared at him. “They’ve pulled us all off our regular duties to assist the Aurors hunting for Black, and don’t change the subject. Remus, you agreed? You said you would do this? You would broadcast your affiliation with a Death Eater?”

“I don’t have an affiliation --”

“For heaven’s sake, just come work with me at the Ministry!” Lyall exclaimed. “Think of all the help you could do for your kind! Amos Diggory would be delighted to have you on board -- you could provide the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures insight that we have never had to the werewolf population!”

“I’ll pass,” Remus said shortly. This conversation got worse every time they had it. “Look, Dad, I just came to tell you where you should send owls to me for the next year.” He stood. “I should go. I work at the pub tonight.”

Lyall stood too, and reached for his son. “No -- I’m sorry, son. I didn’t mean… well.” He placed his hand on Remus’s forearm, and Remus stared down at it, feeling the kind eyes of his mother’s portrait watching him. “Can you stay for an early dinner?”

Remus clenched his jaw and breathed deep through his nose, balancing the thought of a free meal against two hours of conversation with his father. Finally, he looked up at the man who had locked him in enchanted rooms so the neighbors wouldn’t hear him scream. “Sure.”

***

Apparently, it was not the first faculty meeting of the new school year, Remus thought as he stood at the doorway to the Hogwarts staff room. Just the first one to which he had been invited. 

The looks on the faces of the rest of the faculty ranged from open curiosity to ill-disguised fear to loathing (but that was just Snape, and Remus wasn’t sure what else he’d been expecting). He was saved from standing there and staring back at all of them by the loud sound of a throat clearing near the head of the table.

“Remus,” said Minerva McGonagall in a tone that brooked no refusal, “come sit here.”

Remus smiled ignored the stares as he walked along the table. He took the seat she indicated and placed his lesson planning materials on the table as she surveyed him. “I’m glad you’ll be with us,” she said briskly, turning back to her own materials and straightening them. “It’s about time the students had a Defense professor who knew what he was doing.”

Remus laughed once. “Gilderoy Lockhart, Professor? Really?”

“Minerva, now. And I wasn’t part of that decision,” she said primly. “But he left us as he came, in a storm of drama. Who else would attempt to modify the memories of two twelve-year-olds with a broken wand and get his head knocked about in the Chamber of Secrets?”

“Wait -- what?” Remus turned back to face her. “What happened?”

Professor McGonagall -- Minerva -- looked up and met his gaze, surprise clear in her expression. “I assumed -- I thought Albus would have told you.”

“Told me what?” Remus asked, unease unfurling in the pit of his stomach. Harry had been twelve last year.

Minerva started to reply, but at that moment, the door opened and Albus Dumbledore glided into the room, Rubeus Hagrid stumping after him. Hagrid’s hairy face split into a wide grin when he saw Remus; he gave a cheery wave before taking his seat in the reinforced chair that stood in the corner. Remus waved back before returning his attention to Minerva, fully prepared to hiss a demand that she tell him what had happened with Lockhart. Perhaps seeing this in his face, she patted his arm and whispered, “Come to my office for tea once we’re done here.”

As Dumbledore took his place at the head of the table, the whispered conversations permeating the room broke up. “I see that Sybill is not joining us, but nevertheless we are called to order,” he said, surveying the room over his half-moon spectacles. “Before we get to anything else, I am pleased to inform you all that I have just met with the Board of Governors, and they have approved my appointment of Rubeus Hagrid to fill Theseus Kettleburn’s post.” He extended his hand towards Hagrid, who once again struggled to hide a grin and gazed down at his hands in his lap. Remus, shocked and pleased, moved to applaud, but stopped himself when he saw that he was the only one doing so. He saw Pomona Sprout and Filius Flitwick exchange a glance, but neither they nor anyone else commented. After a rather awkward silence, Dumbledore spoke again.

“And so, Hagrid joins Remus Lupin on our faculty for this coming year.”

“I’m sorry,” broke in a stout man at the end of the table whom Remus didn’t recognize. “I still have to question the wisdom of that choice, Professor Dumbledore.”

“You have already questioned it, Alexander.” Dumbledore’s stare pierced him, and even Remus, who was putting all his effort into maintaining a neutral expression, felt the chill. “I invited Remus to take the post. He has accepted. The governors approved. That is really all there is to say.” 

“I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t think it is,” the wizard named Alexander argued. “Did you tell the governors what he is?”

Minerva raised her eyebrows and cut in. “According to policies set forth by the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, it is illegal to disclose a wizard’s lycanthropic status to a third party, Professor Derwent. Surely you know this.”

“Also,” piped up Professor Sprout, “he did attend Hogwarts for seven years, Alexander. You weren’t with us at the time, but there was never a single incident --”

Snape, who was sitting back from the table, hissed low. It was a quiet sound, but it was enough to attract the attention of everyone in the room as he stared Remus down. Remus refused to drop his gaze. 

“And,” Sprout hurried on, “we now have the Wolfsbane Potion, which Severus has agreed to make for Remus. I honestly don’t see the problem.” 

“Nor do I,” squeaked Flitwick, and Remus felt himself begin to breathe a little easier.

“If Remus Lupin puts half as much effort into his work as a teacher as he did into his work as a student, then we are lucky to have him,” began Aurora Sinistra, meeting Remus’s gaze. The memory of her quietly warning him that she was about to begin instruction on the lunar cycle, and that he was welcome to miss class if he felt it necessary, surfaced in his mind. “But I rather worry what the fallout will be, both for him and for this institution, if word of his condition reaches the parents.”

“Then it would be best if word did not reach the parents,” Dumbledore said, a note of steel in his voice that quieted the whole room. “While I value your opinions, this is not a debate. I asked Remus to take this position with us, and he has accepted. That will suffice for all of us.” He surveyed the table, but no one else spoke. “Thank you. Let’s move on.” He turned to Minerva. “Professor McGonagall, I believe something has recently been resolved with Miss Granger’s situation?”

“Indeed,” Minerva said, her voice crisp, as she withdrew a page of parchment from the sheaf before her. “As some of you know, Hermione Granger, a rising third year Gryffindor, has signed up for every single one of the OWL electives.”

Remus raised his eyebrows. James, Lily and Sirius had been in a constant three-way tie for top of their class all seven years of Hogwarts, and even the three of them had never tried for anything that ambitious.

Minerva went on, “I have decided to allow her to go forward with that course schedule. I know what many of you must be thinking, but Miss Granger is incredibly capable. She is highly intelligent, she is a very hard worker --”

“That’s all well and good,” cut in Flitwick, “and I’m not disputing it, but the fact remains that twelve classes is an absolutely overwhelming workload! There are simply not enough hours in the day!”

“That’s actually a good point,” said Sprout, removing her hat so that she could comb her hair back from her face. “There aren’t enough hours in the day. My third year Gryffindor class meets at the same time as Bathsheba’s introductory Ancient Runes third year class. And that can’t be the only conflict. This isn’t possible.”

“Which is why --” Minerva held up the piece of parchment she’d withdrawn; Remus could make out the seal of the Department of Mysteries “-- I have arranged for her to have a Time Turner.”

“Minerva,” said Sinistra apprehensively, “that’s…”

“If anyone can handle it and handle it responsibly, it’s this girl,” Minerva said firmly. “Which brings me to my next point -- Miss Granger has to be trusted to learn her own limits. She has asked to do this and will not take no for an answer, but she will likely realize on her own that some of these classes hold her interest better than others. She will make her own choices about which electives to drop and which to keep. I will, however, be asking her to promise not to discuss the Time Turner with any other students.”

“Even Potter and Weasley?” asked Sprout skeptically, and something in Remus jolted.

“I trust her,” Minerva repeated.

“I hope you don’t expect her to get any sort of special treatment, Minerva.” Snape spoke without moving. “As you say, Granger has chosen to take this on herself. I won’t cut any corners for her.”

“No one is asking you to,” Minerva retorted, and Remus got the distinct impression she dearly wished to add something else and was restraining herself. 

Dumbledore inclined his head. “I support Minerva’s decision, and I agree with her assessment of Miss Granger’s character. Minerva has drawn up Miss Granger’s schedule by hand, and we will all provide her with as much support as we can, falling short of preferential treatment. Do we all agree?” The question was perfunctory, but he still surveyed the table and waited for nods and quiet murmurs of acquiescence. “Excellent.

“Next, I need to discuss a rather grave matter with all of you.” Remus felt the mood in the room change, and he himself sat up straighter. “The Minister of Magic has, over both my objections and the objections of the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, decided that dementors are to be stationed at every entrance to the Hogwarts grounds.”

“What?” snapped Minerva, and she wasn’t the only one: there were cries of shock and outrage, and Charity Burbage slapped her open palm down on the table. “Albus, they can’t be serious? Surrounding children with those things?”

“Those were my sentiments exactly,” replied Dumbledore. “But the Aurors are short-staffed to the point that they cannot spare the manpower it would take to station guards in and around the castle.”

“Hit wizards, then?” squeaked Flitwick. “Or wizards who are usually assigned to desk duty?”

“Those were my thoughts.” Dumbledore inclined his head. “But the Minister has spoken, and the Board of Governors does agree with him. The decision was taken out of my hands.”

Sprout raked her hands through her hair again in frustration. “If the dementors couldn’t even keep Black in Azkaban, what makes them think --”

She cut herself off, staring at Remus. In the silence that followed, he felt all the others sneaking glances at him as well.

“I cannot answer that, Pomona,” Dumbledore said as Remus stared down at the tabletop. “But the creatures will not be allowed onto the grounds themselves. They will be permitted no interaction with any of the students. For our part, we shall move all curfews an hour up. Fourth year and younger will now be eight o’clock; fifth years will be nine o’clock; and so on. We will be trusting our Head Boy and Girl, as well as the prefects, to assist with enforcement. Which brings us to our final point of the day.” Dumbledore turned to his deputy headmistress. “Minerva, if you would announce the student leadership for the year?”

“Certainly.” Minerva, face still twisted in vestiges of disgust from the mention of dementors, withdrew another page from her sheaf. “As ever, the selection of the Head Boy and Girl was the decision of the headmaster, and the headmaster, under advice from the heads of house, selected the prefects. The outgoing Quidditch captain, where there was one, assisted the head of house in selecting the successor.” She consulted her list.

“To begin, Percy Weasley of Gryffindor and Annabelle Rothschild of Hufflepuff are our new Head Boy and Girl. Of the remaining eighteen sixth- and seventh-year prefects, none have resigned, so they will shall remain. Hufflepuff is the only change to the Quidditch captains; Cedric Diggory will join Oliver Wood, Marcus Flint, and Roger Davies.” She paused. “I should like to remind everyone that the only power that Quidditch captains have in the House Cup is to detract house points, and then only from their own teams.”

“Has that power ever been exercised?” cut in Sinistra, her eyebrows raised.

“Not in recent memory,” responded Minerva, her voice dry. “I certainly never used it. Moving on, the rising prefects are as follows: For Hufflepuff, Cedric Diggory and Cassidy Thurston. For Gryffindor, Katie Bell and Jack Fitzhugh. For Slytherin, Dionysius Greengrass and Gemma Farley. And for Ravenclaw, Nanette Desford and Michael Belby. I would remind you all,” and Remus may have been imagining it, but he thought he saw her eyes cut to Snape, “that prefects only have the power to deduct points from their own house, and to award points to the other three houses.”

“Thank you, Minerva.” Dumbledore folded his hands into the sleeves of his spangled purple robes. “That completes our agenda, unless anyone else has any issues they wish to raise?”

“I’m afraid I do,” piped up Charity Burbage, and she threw a sympathetic look at Remus before taking a deep breath. “What is the real likelihood that Sirius Black will attempt to enter Hogwarts? I know we have all been given to understand that he desires to seek out Harry Potter, and that places all the other students at risk, of course, but what are the odds it will really happen?”

Dumbledore paused for a long moment, his eyes finding the cloud blue sky out the window, before he answered her. “I cannot say, Charity. I am of the belief that it would be far more difficult to reach Harry in this castle than outside of it, but I can say with a degree of certainty that Harry is currently safe where he. We are all aware that the boy has something of a penchant for trouble, but I think that the severity of the situation can be impressed upon him without alarming him too much. Those of us who remember Sirius Black as a student will know that he was… exceptionally familiar with the layout of the castle and grounds. He will know how difficult it is to attempt to breach it, and I doubt a sane man will try. Which of course,” he mused, “raises the obvious question as to whether Sirius Black is sane, and that I cannot answer.”

Remus had kept his eyes fixed on the knotted wood in front of him during the exchange. He was resolutely not thinking of how easy it would be -- how easy it had been -- for the large black dog to trot into the Shrieking Shack, make its way down into the tunnel, and use its forepaw to tap the knot in the base of the Whomping Willow on its way out.

He took a deep breath and looked up to find Severus Snape staring at him, black eyes boring into his own. Involuntarily, he swallowed hard.

“As always,” continued Dumbledore, “we will place the highest priority on the safety of our students. All members of student leadership will be trained on new security protocols. We will as ever do the best that we can.” He surveyed them all, then sighed. “If there’s nothing else, this meeting is adjourned.”

Avoiding the eyes of everyone else in the room, Remus began to gather his materials as he stood. He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder and glanced up to see Minerva indicate that he should accompany her. Without speaking to any of his new colleagues, he followed his former head of house out into the corridor. 

The murmur of the professors’ voices faded behind them as they proceeded together up the corridor.

“You’re owed an explanation,” Minerva said suddenly, and when Remus looked over at her, her face was determined and there was a steely glint in her eyes. “I know he’s ordered you not to tell Harry that you knew James, which I disagree with, but you have a right to know what that child has been through these last few years.”

Remus nodded, swallowed hard, and forced himself to keep walking forward, even as a stone settled heavy in his gut.


	4. The Day Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> content warning: body horror

Minerva led Remus through her office into what Remus gathered was her private sitting room. It was draped in tartan and off-white, and Minerva tapped the tea service arranged neatly on the coffee table. As steam began to pipe from the kettle’s spout, she sighed and motioned for Remus to sit with her.

 

“I didn’t know that Albus had asked you to promise not to contact Harry until a week after,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry, Remus. I would have stopped it, if I could.”

 

Remus shrugged and kept his eyes down. “It’s for the best, really. I’m not exactly the safest person for a small child to be around.”

 

“I’ll have none of that, thank you,” Minerva scoffed. “And anyhow, it should have been obvious to any of us after a few years that there was no reason to leave that boy with those… _ people _ . Did you ever meet Petunia Dursley?”

 

Although Remus shook his head, he thought about Lily trying not to cry when she received Petunia’s RSVP card for Lily and James’s wedding with the “no” box daintily checked. “From what Lily always said about her, she doesn’t seem pleasant.”

 

Minerva tutted, and then her face grew somber. “When Harry came to us two years ago, he was much too thin,” she said quietly. “And I’m certain he would be at Lily and James’s level academically if he weren’t carrying the weight of the world around with him.”

 

Remus knew his face was too intense as he leaned towards her, but he couldn’t help it. “Tell me.”

 

Minerva sighed and launched into a story that Remus barely believed. 

 

By the time she had finished, dusk had fallen out the window, and Remus’s tea had grown cold on the table in front of him. “A basilisk?” he asked hoarsely. “A  _ basilisk _ ?”

 

“Indeed.” Minerva sat back in her chair. “Children are resilient, and he’s still young, so neither encounter with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named seems to have affected him much thus far, but I do worry about post-traumatic stress.”

 

Remus scrubbed both of his hands down his face. “Unbelievable,” he muttered. “And somehow my talking to him is the big cause for concern.”

 

Minerva nodded, grave. “Dumbledore ordered us not to tell him about his parents. I believe it’s because he expects that any real conversation about the circumstances of their deaths would inevitably lead to questions about Sirius Black, and Dumbledore worries about the impact that would have on him, but….” she paused. “I don’t think any of us give the boy enough credit. After all, he has faced much worse than a few painful memories and survived.”

 

“Right.” Remus nodded vaguely. God. Sirius had bought Harry his first broom. How had they gotten here? He shook himself. “And the girl who was possessed?”

 

“Ginevra Weasley? She’s another one whom I believe to be more resilient than she’s given credit for. From what I gather, she put her foot down rather hard when her mother wanted to withdraw her from Hogwarts after last year.”

 

“My God.”

 

“Yes,” said Minerva dryly, “we’ve had quite a pair of years here.”

 

Remus shoved himself up from the sofa and wandered over to the window, folding his arms over his chest. 

 

_ “I don’t want to stay in hiding, Moony,” James murmured as they both stood over the crib, gazing down at James’s son. “I want to keep fighting. So he doesn’t have to _ .”

 

“Remus.” Minerva’s voice was quiet, and Remus turned back to face her, but kept his own eyes down so as not to see the pity in hers. “He really does seem to be bearing up fine. I for one have never tried to give him any preferential treatment -- he gets enough attention as it is -- but he really is very talented.” She paused and smiled faintly. “And he’s a better flier than his father was, though I’ll deny having said that.”

 

Remus laughed once, reluctantly, and shoved his hands into his pockets. “And we’re not to tell him anything about James and Lily?”

 

“No, unfortunately,” McGonagall sighed. She pointed her wand at Remus’s abandoned teacup and it emptied of the cold liquid. She poured him a fresh cup and reached for a tin on the end table at her elbow. “Here. And have a biscuit.”

 

Remus exhaled roughly and resumed his seat. The tea did help warm him.

 

Minerva continued, “There are a few more things you should know before you step in front of a classroom, however. We have started to get the first wave of the children of the Death Eaters who escaped arrest, either by pleading enchantment or a lack of involvement.”

 

Remus raised his eyebrows and lowered his teacup. “Malfoy? Nott?”

 

She nodded. “To name a few. Unfortunately in twelve years, not much has changed with those families. They’ve just gotten a bit better at hiding it.”

 

A thought occurred to Remus. “Is Snape head of Slytherin? Now that Slughorn is retired?”

 

“Yes.” McGonagall pursed her lips. “I was overruled. I worry about the culture it creates in that house -- a former Death Eater, reformed of his own free will or not, as the closest faculty contact that these students have. It was all right for a while, but then with all this ‘heir of Slytherin’ nonsense last year….”

 

“Do you… can you tell me what he did?” Remus asked, hesitant. “Snape? Why he switched sides, and why Dumbledore trusts him now?”

 

Minerva huffed in exasperation. “I wish I knew, Remus. I really do. I’ve taught myself to trust him, because Dumbledore will never hear a word against him, and to his credit he’s never shown any signs of wishing to return to the Dark Arts, but… all the same.”

 

“All the same,” Remus repeated. He leaned back into the sofa and dragged a hand down his face.

 

“Wondering what you’ve gotten yourself into?” asked Minerva, and when Remus dropped his hand he saw her looking at him with something like amusement.

 

Again, he laughed. “A bit.”

 

“Aurora was right, earlier,” she said quietly. “We really are lucky to have you.”

 

Remus tipped his head back and gazed up at the ceiling. “He said he wanted me to take the job so I could help catch Sirius.”

 

“Yes, he told us -- the heads of house.” Minerva set her teacup down. “I don’t think that was fair to ask of you. It assumes that you knew something all along and voluntarily concealed it, and I don’t know how Dumbledore can think so little of you.”

 

_ “So I was thinking,” Sirius announced as he burst into the dormitory and shoved James’s broom polishing kit to the side so that he could flop onto James’s bed, “that we should all learn how to become Animagi _ .”

 

Remus cleared his throat. “Yeah.”

 

Another long moment of silence passed between them, and then Minerva refilled her own teacup. “You’ll stay and have dinner with me?” she asked, but Remus understood that it was not a request. “And I would be glad to look over your lesson plans, if you like.”

 

Remus smiled. “I’d appreciate that very much. Thank you.”

 

***

 

He had decided to go back to Bristol for the blue moon, the second full moon at the end of August. He had justified it to Madam Pomfrey and Professor Dumbledore by saying that he didn’t want to be in anyone’s way on the night before the term started. The reality was, though, that he wanted one more night of this -- of his little flat, of a night so quiet he could hear his own breathing. He couldn’t explain it to himself, so he didn’t bother trying to explain it to Albus Dumbledore.

 

Remus had had one last weekend in which to say goodbye to Isaac, and they had spent the whole of it trying to act like it was just another day, and failing miserably. Remus should have known better. This was why he didn’t date, didn’t enter relationships, didn’t form connections.

 

He sank down to the floor in his now-empty flat and leaned his head against the wall. The little furniture he had was in storage in his father’s basement, and a trunk in the corner and a suitcase on top of it held everything he would be taking with him when he boarded the Hogwarts Express the following day, because the day after a full moon he was always too weak to Apparate. He didn’t need much else, as he was going to transform into the harmless version of a wolf secured by the potion that night.

 

He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, a futile attempt to ease the ache in his muscles as the sun slowly descended towards the horizon. It was nowhere near as bad as it had been in past years, to be sure, and he was grateful. Still, it didn’t make him hate what he was any less.

 

He only realized he’d fallen into a light doze when the pain of his joints cracking jerked him awake. He shortened his breathing to quick, deliberate gasps, bracing himself -- 

 

He grunted as his leg splintered, and he rigidly straightened his neck so that he would not look down at the way his bone protruded through the skin of his leg. He had perfected this skill years ago, this voluntary dissociation --

 

He was going back to Hogwarts tomorrow, he reminded himself as his left shoulder dislocated. He breathed harshly through his nose. He had taken the potion, it made him safe, and tomorrow he was boarding the train and going back to Hogwarts --

 

_ “Is anyone else weirded out by the fact that tomorrow is the last time we’ll do this?” asked Peter from where he was flopped on the carpet. _

 

_ Sirius nudged him with his toe. “There’s still Christmas.” _

 

_ Summer was fighting to hold on that year, and the humid London air was sweltering as the four boys draped themselves around Eshnaa Potter’s drawing room with all the windows open. James’s parents had invited Remus and Peter to come stay with them for the night of August 31st, and the four of them would make their way to King’s Cross together the following morning. _

 

_ Remus had just fully recovered from the full moon the previous weekend, and he stretched his arms above his head, luxuriating in the absence of pain in the pull of his muscles. “Are there any Sugar Quills left?” _

 

_ James grabbed for the bag of the few remaining sweets that had actually made it home with them from Diagon Alley and fished through it, eventually extracting a delicately-wrapped quill and tossing it up to where Remus was spread out on the couch. _

 

_ “Thanks, mate.” _

 

_ “Yeah.” James rolled off the couch and wandered over to the window that faced out over the garden, holding his t-shirt away from his chest to prevent it from sticking to his skin. “Bloody hell. We’re good people. At the very least we are moderately decent people. We don’t deserve this. Shit.” _

 

_ “Jaipal,” came Eshnaa’s stern voice from the doorway. _

 

_ James turned sheepishly to face her. “Sorry, Amma.” _

 

_ She rolled her eyes. “Bittu, I don’t ask for much. Not in the house, all right?” She glanced around at the rest of them. “Right little pity party you’re all having for yourselves in here.” _

 

_ “Auntie, we’re dying,” Sirius groaned.  _

 

_ “Well, you’ve taken up residence in a west-facing room, so I don’t feel sorry for you.” She re-draped her dupata. “I’m just here to tell you that James’s father will be home in about an hour, so we’ll eat then. And none of you are opposed to chocolate cake, yes?” _

 

_ Peter perked up. “There’s going to be cake?” _

 

_ Eshnaa’s face softened. “Tomorrow you all start your last year of school. Of course there will be cake.” Remus was closest to her, and she reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’m proud of you all. These are hard times for us all, and Fatapal and I are both proud of the men you’ve all become. Cake is the least we can do.” _

 

_ James had lost both of his parents two years later, within a few months of each other. Dragon pox. Completely unexpected. “I spent all my time worrying about coming round to visit them and seeing the Dark Mark over the house,” James had said after Fatapal’s funeral, his voice hollow. “I didn’t think… God.” _

 

Remus passed the rest of the night in relative quiet, in and out of reality, in and out of memory. At one point he was aware of himself, covered in fur and on all fours, wandering around the confines of the flat that was his for one more day.

 

When the sun rose, Remus groaned his way back into awareness as he found himself huddled in the corner. This moon had been even better than the last, he realized, sparing himself a quick smile. He stretched his legs out and extended his arms, taking inventory, making sure that everything was working as it was supposed to. 

 

He relaxed and took a moment to stare up at the ceiling. Today was the day. Rather than ask himself, again, if he was doing the right thing by going back, he told himself to get up and get on with it.

 

He was in and out of the shower relatively quickly, and dressed and swallowed down a granola bar, businesslike. He hefted his trunk by the strap and tucked his suitcase under his shoulder as he opened the door, and he did not look back as he stepped out of his Bristol flat for the last time.


	5. The Dementor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> all recognizable dialogue and other language is the property of JK Rowling (do we even have to do this disclaimer on ao3? anyway here it is)

Remus arrived at Platform Nine and Three Quarters a full three hours before the Express was due to leave the station. King's Cross had been bustling with grumpy, commuting Londoners, and no one had paid Remus any mind as he slipped through the magical barrier.

 

He emerged onto the deserted platform and there it was -- the Hogwarts Express still gleamed scarlet, still dwarfed him as it had the first time he had seen it twenty-two years ago. He paused for a moment and slid his hands into his pockets, just looking. His mother had cried the first time he had boarded it.

 

Pushing the trolley that held his trunk and case, Remus strolled along the platform, eyes drifting along the side of the train. He ignored the lingering soreness from the previous night. Today of course did not mark his first return to Hogwarts, but there was something about taking the train that made him miss James and Peter, and the person Sirius had used to be, with a ferocious ache.

 

He waited until he had reached the very last carriage before he boarded the train. It still smelled the same -- dust and wood finish and something that might have been sugar lingering from the sweets cart. He found a compartment near the very back and slipped into it. Ever since the summer after his fifth year, he had been tall enough to need to stoop to enter the compartments. Quickly and efficiently, he stowed his trunk overhead, ignoring the twinge from his upper back.

 

With a sigh he dropped into a seat nearest the window and leaned his forehead against the glass, watching his breath fog the pane. This was it. Whether it was a massive mistake for him to teach at Hogwarts or not, here he was.

 

The sleepless night he had passed as a wolf was beginning to catch up with him, and he leaned forward in his seat to shrug off his overcoat. With a sigh, he draped it around himself like a blanket and promptly fell asleep.

 

_ He was aware, on some level, that he was dreaming, but that knowledge was swept away with the wave of black-cloaked wizards filing into the little churchyard in Godric’s Hollow. It was a beautiful, crisp fall day. Sirius’s twenty-second birthday. _

 

_ It occurred to him that he still hadn’t cried for any of them, about any of it. After James and Lily had gone into hiding, he had, in a rather macabre way, imagined what their funerals would be like -- Mary holding Harry in her lap, Sirius beside him, clench-jawed and white-knuckled, Peter looking dazed. But Mary had died months ago, Peter was dead too, Harry was gone, and Sirius… Sirius… _

 

_ He swallowed hard as he made his way to the front of chairs that had been set up beside the grave site. The service in the village church had been brief, and no one but the minister had spoken. James had lost his parents to dragon pox two years previous, and Lily’s father had passed away from cancer when they had all been fifteen, and her mother had died in what they had never been able to prove was anything other than a car accident in the middle of the war.  Minerva McGonagall had suggested to him that he give the graveside eulogy, but he had been unable to face it. _

 

_ The sun warmed his shoulders, and he tucked his hands into his robes pockets as McGonagall stepped forward. The war had aged her -- there were lines in her face and gray in her hair that he didn’t remember from his time at at school, only -- God -- only three years ago. _

 

_ McGonagall clasped her hands together as she surveyed them all. He followed her gaze -- now that the war was over, he supposed that those of them who had made it could call themselves ‘what was left of the Order of the Phoenix.’ Frank and Alice were there, Alice cradling her baby boy in her arms, and Kingsley Shacklebolt with his head bowed, and Charles Bones with his wife, and -- His blood froze as he met the eyes of Andromeda Black Tonks, with her husband and child. She held his gaze for only a moment, her face blank, but then McGonagall started to speak, and Andromeda turned away. _

 

_ “I was the one who visited Lily Evans and her parents to deliver her Hogwarts letter to her,” McGonagall began, “and I had first met James a few years previous, when his father brought him to a meeting of the Hogwarts board of governors….” _

 

_ He frowned. McGonagall’s mouth was still moving, and the sun was still shining, but the air suddenly chilled, and her voice was fading, as if she were retreating down a tunnel. He looked around, confused, but no one else was reacting. But rising up like dust around him were whispers, frantic whispers -- _

 

“What are you doing?” A girl’s voice, anxious.

 

“I was looking for Ron --”

 

“Come and sit down --”

 

“Not here!  _ I’m  _ here!” A boy’s voice, now. 

 

“Ouch --” 

 

“Quiet!” snapped Remus, shifting upright in his seat. It took him a moment to remember where he was, but he recognized the chill creeping up his spine, and there were children in the compartment with him now. He fumbled for the lighter in his pocket and flicked it to life.

 

Five still, pale faces stared back at him through the orange glow. He could really only make out the features of the white boy closest to him, the rest wreathed in shadow, but he could tell that none of them were older than thirteen and would not be able to defend themselves against a dementor, if it came to that. He swallowed hard.

 

“Stay where you are,” he ordered, aware of how rough his voice sounded as he shook the exhaustion from his limbs and forced himself to stand. He shrugged his overcoat aside and made for the door, but it slid open before he could reach it.

 

The muscles in his chest tensed and tendrils of ice crawled across his face. He had encountered dementors only twice before, but the stench of frozen death was not easy to forget. Despair crept its way up his throat. He swallowed it down, refusing to step back, and scrambled in his memory for something with which he could summon a Patronus. One of the girls behind him whimpered.

 

As if it could sense her fear, the dementor drew in one long, shuddering breath. It rattled through the air, through Remus and past him. The boy to his left began to shake, violently, and Remus looked down at him. 

 

His heart stopped.  _ James _ .

 

But in the space of a heartbeat, the last twelve years caught up with him, and that couldn’t be James, clammy, shaking, eyes rolled back in his head. James was dead, but his son was here, collapsing, not breathing -- 

 

Remus shook himself and faced the dementor. “None of us are hiding Sirius Black under our cloaks,” he told the thing, his pulse thundering in his temples. “Go.”

 

It didn’t move, and Remus felt as if it were sizing him up but he didn’t care, because Harry -- oh God,  _ Harry _ \-- was now shaking so violently that he had slid off his seat and to the floor, pale as death. Remus drew his wand and forced himself to concentrate. 

 

_ “You don’t…” Remus stared around the dormitory, eyes wide, heart pounding. “You don’t care?” _

 

_ James stared at him blankly. “Why would we care?” _

 

_ “Because…. I’m a monster.” _

 

_ Sirius rolled his eyes. “You’re still the same person you were last week, before we figured it out.” _

 

_ “We’re all mates,” Peter added, quietly. _

 

Remus took a deep breath.  _ “Expecto Patronum!” _

 

The soft shield form of his Patronus spilled from the tip of his wand and shaped itself up, up, around the dementor’s face. The thing started back, almost as if it were offended, before it jerked its way back into the corridor. Remus, wand still aloft, followed it to the threshold, and directed his Patronus to solidify into the wolf form. The great gleaming beast bared its teeth at the dementor, which slid down to an exterior door of the carriage, without entering any more compartments.

 

The train gave a groan and a shudder, and the lamps along the corridor flickered back to life. The floor shook, and then the dark forest was once again drifting past the windows, picking up speed. They were moving again. Remus dropped his wand. His Patronus turned to face him for a few moments before collapsing into mist.

 

He braced himself before returning to the compartment. When he did, a redheaded boy was crouched over Harry’s unresponsive form, shaking him, while a black girl with bushy hair kneeled beside him, looking on anxiously. Remus sidestepped them all and moved to his case, certain that he had a stash of chocolate hidden somewhere. His stomach was in knots. Had he moved too slowly? God, if anything had happened to Harry -- and if it was Remus’s fault --

 

“Harry!  _ Harry! _ ” The boy was slapping Harry’s face now. Remus retrieved the chocolate and was about to draw his wand again, to awaken Harry by magic, when the boy startled. “Are you all right?” the redheaded boy demanded. 

 

Harry opened his eyes --  _ Lily’s eyes _ \-- and blinked, bleary, in the lantern light. “What?” He grimaced at the sight of Remus and the other boy watching him, and shifted to try and lift himself back into his seat. The boy and girl on either side of him helped him up, but he moved to free his arms, almost as if he were ashamed to have needed the help.

 

“Are you okay?” the redheaded boy asked him, anxiety still threading its way through his voice. 

 

“Yeah,” Harry breathed, but he was still pale as he looked at the compartment door. “What -- what happened? Where’s that -- that thing?” He looked around at the rest of them, as if he were counting them. “Who screamed?”

 

A stone dropped into Remus’s stomach, and he busied him with unwrapping the brick of chocolate he had found.  _ Deep breaths _ . 

 

The redheaded boy exchanged a glance with the black girl. “No one screamed.”

 

“But…” said Harry, hesitant now. “I heard screaming.”

 

Remus’s hands shook as he snapped off the first piece of chocolate, and the redheaded girl, who looked enough like the boy that she had to be his sister, jumped in her seat. He steeled himself before looking up again, and handed Harry the largest piece. “Here. Eat it,” he instructed, critically eyeing the pallor of the boy’s face. “It’ll help.” He finished breaking apart the bar and handed the next-largest piece to the little girl, who still had yet to speak.

 

“What was that thing?” Harry asked, and it took Remus a moment to realize that the boy was speaking to him.

 

_ “He looks just like you, Prongs! God help him.” _

 

Remus focused on distributing the rest of the chocolate. “A dementor. One of the dementors of Azkaban.” He looked up to find them all staring at him, and he realized, belatedly, that the round-faced boy in the corner looked too much like Alice Longbottom to be anyone other than her son. He sighed as he pocketed the chocolate wrapper. “Eat,” he instructed all of them. “It’ll help.”

 

The cold he had not managed to fully shake was creeping up on him again, trying to drag him back down. Abruptly, he stood. “I need to speak to the driver. Excuse me.”

 

He forced himself to walk sedately past them, these two boys who looked too much like the ghosts of their parents, and stepped out into the hallway.

 

He made it all the way to the vestibule between their carriage and the next before he paused, and leaned up against the wall, and held his shaking hands to his face. He had expected to see Harry for the first time at a distance in the Great Hall, or in his class. He had expected time to prepare. He had not expected to come out of a nightmare about the funeral of Harry’s parents and see the boy collapsed on the floor at his feet.

 

He inhaled slowly, counting off the seconds, and then let the breath out. Driver. He was going to speak to the driver. And he should probably send word ahead to the castle. Poppy Pomfrey should see Harry. Right.

 

He shook himself and proceeded the rest of the way up the train. As he passed the individual compartments, he could sense the anxiety from the students, and it occurred to a small part of his brain to wonder who exactly had thought it would be a good idea to send a dementor to search a train full of underage wizards as opposed to a team of Aurors.

 

He finally made his way to the engineer’s cabin. The woman who pushed the sweets trolley, and had been since at least the time that Remus himself had been in school, was sitting beside the driver, and they both looked up when he entered. He cleared his throat. “Er, hello. My name is Remus Lupin, and I’m the incoming Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.” It was the first time he’d said the words, and they tasted odd in his mouth. “Do you know who authorized the dementor to search the train?”

 

The witch scoffed and turned back to the knitting in her lap. The driver rolled his eyes and grunted, “Aye. We was told before we left London -- some bloke from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement told us it’d be happening, but not when nor where.” He paused. “The kids okay?”

 

Remus felt his jaw clench. “At least one of them collapsed. Is there any way to send word ahead to the castle so the matron can  be prepared? Does the school keep any owls on board?”

 

“No,” said the witch, “but I can send you back with some chocolate for the student who fainted? Is he all right?”

 

“I gave him chocolate, but you might want to make another pass down the train with the cart.” Remus sighed, realizing that he would have to turn to the method of communication he’d been trying to avoid. “Are we nearly there?”

 

“Aye.” The driver looked back at Remus, examining him critically. “Defense Against the Dark Arts?” he asked, eyebrows raised. Remus just met his gaze, and the man snorted. “Good luck.”

 

“Thanks,” Remus muttered, before he turned and left, closing the sliding door to the cabin behind him. He lingered in the vestibule and, after a quick glance into the next carriage to ensure that no one was watching from the corridor, he pulled open the exterior door to the train. Gripping the railing with his left hand, he pointed his wand out into the forest as it sped by and thought, _“Minerva -- dementor searching the train caused Harry Potter to collapse. I’ve given him chocolate and he seems shaken but determined to be fine. Perhaps Poppy should see him anyway.”_ _“Expecto Patronum,”_ he whispered again.

 

Once again, the silver mist poured from the tip of his wand and soared off into the forest. Remus shut the door behind it and eased his way back into the first passenger carriage of the train. It seemed that the students were settling down as he passed the compartments, and he checked his watch. It shouldn’t take them more than another few minutes to reach the castle. 

 

In the last carriage, he took a moment to prepare himself before he slid open the door to his compartment. The kids had shifted slightly -- Harry and the redheaded boy were sitting side by side, across from Alice and Frank’s son, but the black girl had gone to the redheaded girl and wrapped her arm around her shoulders. None of them, he noticed, had eaten their chocolate, which went some way towards explaining the ashenness still lingering in all their faces. They all looked up at him and he smiled. “I haven’t poisoned the chocolate, you know.”

 

Embarrassed, Harry bit into his piece, and the rest followed suit. Remus thought that Harry even looked marginally better as Remus slid back to his seat. “We’ll be at Hogwarts in ten minutes,” he told them, before really turning to look at the boy. Harry was almost as dark as James had been beneath the pallor, and his hands were still shaking for all that he was clenching his fists to control them. “Are you all right, Harry?”

 

The words were out of his mouth before he remembered that he wasn’t supposed to know Harry, wasn’t supposed recognize him, had been expected to deny Harry and his father until Dumbledore told him otherwise.

 

But Harry didn’t flinch, and Remus realized belatedly that the boy was probably well used to strangers in the magical world recognizing him by the scar on his forehead. “Fine,” Harry mumbled, still looking down.

 

None of the students really spoke much for the remainder of the journey, and Remus followed suit. The redheaded boy kept shooting anxious glances at Harry, and it finally occurred to Remus that this boy must be Ronald Weasley, whom Minerva had said, grudging admiration in her voice, had beaten her enchanted chess set two years ago. And if this boy was Ronald, then the girl who had to be his sister must have been Ginevra, the girl who had been through the harrowing ordeal in the Chamber of Secrets just months before. It was no wonder, he thought as he silently offered her another piece of chocolate, that she looked so pale. 

 

When the train ground to a halt, the students waited quietly for Remus to gather his things and precede them out of the compartment. With one final glance at Harry, Remus joined the press of students in the corridor.

 

He descended to the station platform and skirted the crowd of students, making for a carriage near the back of the waiting bunch, resolutely ignoring the thestral standing still and silent at its fore. He had been able to see the beasts since he was eighteen; they had never stopped unnerving him. 

 

_ Sirius stood and leaned out the carriage window until half his torso was hanging out. “Are we going to move soon?” _

 

_ “Your arse is in my face,” said James, bored. Peter laughed _ .

 

The carriage jolted as the thestrals began to trot forward, and Remus shook himself and shifted to look out the window. Through the horde of carriages and beasts around him, the castle loomed into view, a dark shadow with windows glittering like jewels against the velvet sky. 

 

At that moment, the chill was back, creeping up Remus’s spine, and he stiffened. As his carriage passed through the gates, one of the two dementors stationed at the entrance to the grounds turned its faceless head to stare in through his windows. Remus shrank back. Who in God’s name had decided this would be a good idea?

 

His carriage was one of the last ones to pull up to the castle steps, and he thought he heard shouting as it rumbled to a stop. He disembarked and looked around, debating whether or not to draw his wand.

 

“Did you faint as well, Weasley?” a boy’s voice said, loudly, mocking. “Did the scary old dementor frighten you too, Weasley?”

 

Remus turned towards the sound and his mouth twitched. Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy’s son. It  _ had  _ to be, with that platinum hair and that pointed face. The boy and two of his friends had somehow gotten between Harry and Ronald and the black girl who had been with them on the train, and the Malfoy boy was surveying Harry with a shadow of his father’s malicious delight on his face. 

 

Remus straightened his robes. “Is there a problem?” he asked pointedly. The five boys turned to look at him. 

 

The Malfoy boy smirked as he looked Remus up and down, and Remus fought the urge to roll his eyes and tell the boy that he had, at one point in another life, beaten Lucius Malfoy in a duel by charming a rock to fly at Malfoy’s Death Eater mask and break his nose. “Oh, no,” Malfoy sneered, “Er --  _ Professor _ .” He shared a laugh with his friends and led them inside without another word. Remus watched them go, his eyebrows raised. 

 

He pared off from the crush of students heading for the Great Hall and slipped around to a side door that would let him in behind the High Table. The rest of the faculty, absent Minerva and Flitwick, it seemed, were already seated, sitting up straight and wearing their best robes. Pomona Sprout smiled at Remus as he took the seat between her and Aurora Sinistra.

 

The sea of students before the High Table, divided neatly into their four House tables, their pointed hats reaching up towards the enchanted ceiling, was more than slightly intimidating. Again, Remus felt a pang of unworthiness as his eyes skimmed over their upturned faces. He had lived what felt like a whole lifetime between the day he had graduated Hogwarts and right now, but it still felt like a joke, a mistake, to have him up here. 

 

Flitwick opened the Sorting, but Remus wasn’t listening. During his own Sorting, he had still been reeling at being allowed to attend Hogwarts at all after years of his father telling him it would be impossible when he had entered the Great Hall for the first time. By the middle of the alphabet, everyone was nervous, because “Black, Sirius” had been a true Hatstall -- the Sorting Hat had taken more than five minutes to Sort him -- and his anxiety had bled over to the rest of them. But when Remus’s name had been called, he had taken a deep breath and reminded himself that he was  _ here _ , he was at Hogwarts, and the rest was just details.

 

_ He walked carefully up the steps to where Professor McGonagall was waiting with the hat. He clambered up onto the stool, and the hat descended over his eyes, and a voice spoke in his ear. _

 

_ “A werewolf? Well this is a first.” _

 

_ Remus swallowed hard. The hat was quiet for a moment, then said, “Intelligent. Thirsty for knowledge. Good, good. But what do you want, werewolf? What matters to you?” _

 

_ No one had told Remus that the hat would ask him questions. His father had just said that it would look into him, and see where he fit best, and send him there. “I… don’t know?” he thought, nervous again. He forced himself not to move. _

 

_ “Hmm.” The hat considered him. “You want to belong, to be sure, but that’s not it… Oh, I see… you want to  _ deserve _ to belong. Interesting distinction. Very interesting. You want to be… worthy of something.” _

 

_ Remus said nothing. _

 

_ “Nothing to add, then?” the hat asked. “Last chance… well then.” There had been a pause, and then it had shouted to the whole Hall, “GRYFFINDOR!” _

 

A hand was laid gently on his shoulder, and Remus startled back to the present, only to look up to see Minerva smile quickly at him before she moved along the back of the table to her own seat. Remus glanced across the hall to see Harry and the black girl from the train trying, without much success, to sneak unnoticed into the Great Hall. The two of them darted over to the Gryffindor table and took the seats on either side of Ronald Weasley. Remus saw Ronald lean over to whisper to Harry, and Harry started to whisper back, only to stop abruptly when Albus Dumbledore stood up in the center of the High Table. The headmaster spread his arms and smiled down on all the students, and Remus felt himself begin to truly relax for the first time since the dementor had entered his compartment on the train.

 

“Welcome!” he declaimed. “Welcome to another year at Hogwarts! I have a few things to say to you all, and as one of them is very serious,” the smile dropped from his face, and he surveyed his students with a new solemnity, “I think it best to get it out of the way before you become befuddled by our excellent feast. As you will all be aware after their search of the Hogwarts Express, our school is presently playing host to some of the dementors of Azkaban, who are here on Ministry of Magic business.”

 

Remus shifted in his seat. Dumbledore continued, “They are stationed at every entrance to the grounds, and while they are with us, I must make it plain that nobody is to leave school without permission. Dementors are not to be fooled by tricks or disguises, or even Invisibility cloaks.”

 

_ “Look what my dad let me have,” James whispered excitedly, once they were ensconced in their Hogwarts Express cabin at the end of the Christmas break. He reached his hand into his trunk and pulled out a handful of silvery gray material, and it was what Remus imagined water would look like if it was spun into cloth _ .

 

Suddenly Remus found his eyes sliding back to Harry, and when he saw Harry exchanging a glance with Ronald, he quickly hid a smile while simultaneously swallowing down a pang of loss.

 

“It is not in the nature of a dementor to understand pleading or excuses,” Dumbledore went on. “I therefore warn each and every one of you to give them no reason to harm you. I look to the prefects, and our new Head Boy and Girl, to make sure that no student runs afoul of the dementors.”

 

Dumbledore paused, then smiled again. “On a happier note, I am pleased to welcome two new teachers to our ranks this year.” He waved a hand in Remus’s direction. “First, Professor Lupin, who has kindly consented to fill the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.”

 

Remus nodded mechanically, but he barely heard the applause over his own pounding heart. He blinked, and smiled, and reminded himself not to panic. The applause died and he reminded himself to breathe.

 

Dumbledore went on, “As to our second appointment… well, I am sorry to tell you that Professor Kettleburn, our Care of Magical Creatures teacher, retired at the end of last year to spend more time with his remaining limbs.” Remus’s eyebrows shot up again, and he caught Pomona’s eyes. She grimaced at him, and shook her head slightly in the universal signal to not ask. “However, I am delighted to say that his place will be filled by none other than Rubeus Hagrid, who has agreed to take on this teaching job in addition to his gamekeeping duties.”

 

It was as if a small bomb had gone off at Gryffindor table. The students there easily drowned out the applause from the other three tables, and Remus heard a few of them actually let out whoops. He grinned down the table at Hagrid, but Hagrid didn’t see -- his gaze was fixed down at his hands, but Remus was sure he was smiling.

 

Eventually, the applause died down, and Dumbledore smiled. “Well, I think that’s everything of importance. Let the feast begin!” He took his seat as food appeared on the tables before them all, and the Hall suddenly filled with the clatter of forks and knives and serving spoons.

 

Remus was quiet as he served himself. Ghosts had been flitting in and out of his memory all day, and he wasn’t sure if he was equipped to handle that for the next… however long it took him to grow accustomed to being back at Hogwarts again. 

 

“He’s very like his mother,” he heard Pomona’s voice say, and he looked up to see her watching him thoughtfully. “Harry Potter. I don’t know him nearly as well as Minerva does, of course, but he’s quiet, and always tries his best, but there’s something about him…” she trailed off and shook her head. “Last year, when those petrifications were happening, you could see how worried he was for his friend, and for the rest of the Muggle-born students. We can all talk until we’re blue in the face about how much he looks like his father, and of course he does, but there’s something about his determination to see justice done that reminds me quite a bit of Lily.”

 

Remus nodded, but could not speak. He focused on his plate for the rest of the feast. God, what was he  _ doing  _ here?

 

When the feast ended, he quietly slipped away from the table, out of the same side door through which he had entered, and ascended the marble staircase alone. 

 

The moonlit castle was silent as he made his way through it, trying hard not to think about stifled laughter and trips to and from the kitchens and prefect patrols with Lily and a hundred other things he had spent a lifetime suppressing. 

 

He unlocked the door to the defense classroom, the room that was now his, and stood on the threshold for a moment, surveying the space. That god-awful dragon skeleton still hung from the ceiling, and the accumulated debris of who knew how many of his predecessors lined the walls and shelves and window sills. Silently, he passed between the desks and ascended the stairs that led to the office.

 

The room was bare save for a desk and a bookshelf, and he made a mental note to find ways to decorate it so that it wasn’t so stark as to intimidate students out of coming to him for help. 

 

When he opened the door to his private quarters, the orange glow of a small fire laid in the hearth bathed him in warmth, and his shoulders relaxed. His trunk had been placed at the end of the bed, his suitcase on top of it, and he walked slowly to the armchair by the window and sank into it, looking around. Home for the next year, he mused, as long as nothing disastrous happened.

 

The ache in his bones from the full moon that had passed fewer than twenty-four hours previous, briefly deadened by the adrenaline of confronting the dementor and the anxiety of taking his place on the Hogwarts staff, crept back in, and he rolled his head around on his neck, sighing. Classes started tomorrow -- he had two groups of first years, so he would be their first real introduction to life at school. 

 

His gaze drifted out to the open window, and the waning moon was just barely visible around the Astronomy Tower. Sirius was out there somewhere.  _ “He’s at Hogwarts _ .”

 

_ No.  _ Shaking the thought off, Remus stood and began readying himself for bed. Surely, he’d had enough drama for one day. If Sirius wanted to touch Harry, he’d have a job getting onto the grounds. 

 

_ The great black dog barked, the rat perched between its shoulder blades, both of their fur glistening in the moonlight. The stag loped along beside the wolf, and together, the four of them made their way back to the shack perched upon the hill _ .

 

_ Enough, _ Remus told himself. He had a place here, a job, shelter, food, a salary. He had the trust of people he respected. He wasn’t going to jeopardize that by dwelling on things that likely didn’t even matter.


	6. Sparks and Shield Charms

Remus woke on September second to the uncomfortable feeling that a hundred moths had become trapped in his stomach and were frantically flapping their wings in their search of a way out. He knew how they felt. 

 

He lay there for a moment, watching the dust motes swirl in the bar of sunlight that had slipped past the curtain over the window. Two classes of first years this morning -- Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff -- and then, in the afternoon, a double period. Fifth year OWL students. Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. 

 

Well, he supposed he’d made it through worse and survived.

 

The stillness of the early morning stretched out around him as he counted down from twenty to prepare himself to get up. He decided to forgo breakfast in the Great Hall, opting instead to tap his wand to the French press he’d set up on the table in the corner before he got ready. 

 

What had Dumbledore been thinking, asking him? What had he been thinking saying yes? He wasn’t equipped to teach these kids. He shouldn’t even be a normal part of society, with what he was, Wolfsbane Potion be damned. 

 

Finally, he took a deep breath and passed from his quarters, through his office, to the staircase that led down into the classroom. It was still empty; a quick glance at the clock told him that his first class wasn’t due to start for another fifteen minutes. It was likely a good number of them would be late anyway; he reminded himself. First years on their first day. For something to do with his hands, he withdrew the roster from his case and went through again.

 

The door opened slowly, and a trio of eleven-year-olds cautiously stuck their heads around it. Remus looked up at them and smiled, and their faces relaxed as they opened the door the rest of the way. In little clusters they moved to fill the two-person desks, looking around cautiously. One boy gasped when his eyes found the dragon skeleton. They were dead silent and wide-eyed when they stared at Remus, waiting for him to do something.

 

Remus cleared his throat and went to take his seat behind the teacher’s desk, then thought better of it. Instead, he walked around to the front of the desk and perched on top of it, looking out over the crowd of Ravenclaws. “Good morning,” he said. “And welcome to Hogwarts. I’m Professor Lupin, and this is Defense Against the Dark Arts.”

 

He surveyed them all; there were only ten of them, and he wondered briefly if he had ever been that small. A boy in the front row raised his hand, and Remus nodded at him, but before the boy could speak, Remus added to the rest of the class, “And for a while, just until I figure out who’s who, do you mind saying your names when you’re called on?” He looked back at the boy. 

 

“Firuz Tirmizi,” the boy said promptly, shaking his fringe out of his dark eyes. “And please, sir, why do we need to know defense against the Dark Arts? My aba says that there were Dark wizards a long time ago, but that there aren’t any more.”

 

Remus sighed, figuring that he should have anticipated this question. “Your father is mostly right,” he said carefully. “There were some… very active Dark wizards a while ago, before any of you were born. That level of activity did stop for the most part, but…” he paused, chewing on the words. “It’s always good to be prepared.”

 

“Besides, Firuz,” piped up a girl in the back, “Sirius Black is a Dark wizard.”

 

Remus swallowed hard. “You don’t need to worry about Sirius Black,” he told her, avoiding eye contact with the whole room. “You’re safe while you’re in this castle; Professor Dumbledore and the Ministry have seen to that. What we try to do in your lessons your first year, and what  _ I _ try to do in this class, is just give you a foundation so that you know a little bit of everything. Nobody expects you to be attacked in this school.”

 

They all seemed to accept that, and Remus allowed himself a small sigh of relief. He looked out over them all, making sure they were listening. “The purpose of Defense Against the Dark Arts is to defend yourself, and usually that’s best accomplished by avoiding the fight altogether. There should be three things you do before you actually decide to start a duel. Write these down.” He waited until they had all unrolled their parchment and dipped their quills into inkwells. “First, you hide. If that doesn’t work, you try to scare the person you’re up against. If  _ that _ doesn’t work, you run. Then, and only then, should you really be prepared to attack someone. This year, we’ll be focusing on those first three steps.” He waited for them to nod, and he straightened his spine a bit, beginning to feel more comfortable in the space.

 

“Now,” he said, businesslike, “go ahead and put your books away. We won’t be needing them today. One of the first things I need you all to know about truly defending yourselves is that it’s always all right to ask for help. Needing help isn’t a sign of weakness.”  He may have been imagining it, but he thought he saw a few of the students relax just a bit in their seats. He drew his own wand, pointed it at the ceiling and said, clearly, so they all could hear him, “ _ Periculum! _ ” 

 

A shower of red sparks flew from the tip of his wand, towards the dragon skeleton, and shimmered in the air for a moment before fading away. The students watched, wide-eyed, and one little girl gasped “Wow” very softly.

 

Remus set his wand down on his desk. “Who has ideas about the purpose of shooting sparks?”

 

A girl near the middle of the room raised her hand, and Remus smiled at her. “Er -- oh, my name is Abigail Kane, and you were talking earlier about scaring people? Would shooting sparks at them scare them?”

 

Remus nodded approvingly. “Indeed it would, and do you go by Abigail or do you prefer Abby?”

 

The girl blushed. “Abby.”

 

Remus nodded. “All right. Abby. And yes, that’s an excellent point. Anybody else?”

 

Firuz raised his hand again. “To show where you are? So people can come help you if you need it?”

 

“Excellent. Now -- don’t draw your wands yet, but we are going to practice the incantation. Repeat after me, and make sure that you speak very clearly.  _ Periculum _ .”

 

“ _ Periculum! _ ” they chorused, some more loudly than others. Remus nodded.

 

“Very good. Now, let’s have you all stand up and place your bags on your chairs.” He waited for the shuffling to die out as they did what he asked, and then he flicked his wand. The desks and chairs slid out of the center of the room and lined the walls. “All right, let’s have you all line up along this left wall here, and face out into the center of the room. Very good. Now. Draw your wands -- make sure you’re pointing them straight forward -- and all together now.  _ Periculum! _ ”

 

“ _ Periculum _ !” they chorused again, but only a few dim sparks spilled from the wands held in shaking hands. The boy closest to Remus, who hadn’t summoned any sparks at all, looked at him guiltily and seemed to shrink in on himself.

 

Remus smiled at him and said to the group at large, “Excellent first try, everybody. It’s normal to not know what to expect when you try something new, so just take a deep breath. Regroup.” He paused, and the room was quiet for a moment. “I don’t expect all of you to get it on the first try, and it’s absolutely all right that you haven’t. Let’s go again. On the count of three. One-- two -- three --”

 

“ _ Periculum! _ ” It was stronger this time, louder, and a few more sparks flew, and more the time after that. He caught a few smiles here and there from the students.

 

“Well done, everyone!” he praised them as he stood. “Now I’m going to be moving along behind you all, correcting your grips, so just go ahead and keep practicing until I tell you to stop.”

 

By the end of the class, all ten of the students had managed to shoot sparks at least once. The hour had gone by so fast that Remus looked up at the clock in surprise. “All right,” he called out from the end of the row, where he had been perfecting the grip of a girl named Kira, “let’s call it enough for today. Hold still, please.” He directed the desks and chairs to fly back to their original positions, and the students moved in to retrieve their belongings. “Very nice work today, everyone. Well done. Your only homework is to read the first chapter of  _ The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection _ and answer the questions at the end of it. I shall see you all on Wednesday, and once again, welcome to Hogwarts.”

 

“Thank you, sir,” a few of them chorused, and Remus smiled in relief as they all began to head for the door. That hadn’t been so bad. In fact… it may have almost gone well.

 

The last few students filed out, but Remus knew he had only a few moments until the Hufflepuffs began to enter. Absently, he rubbed at his stomach. He was beginning to wish he had gone down to breakfast after all. 

 

He had time for only a quick glance around to ensure that the empty desks had in fact been returned to their proper places before the Hufflepuff first years began to file in, in much the same cautious way as the Ravenclaws had. Whispering among themselves, they slowly eased themselves into the desks, with the exception one of the girls, who crept up to where Remus was once again perched on the edge of his desk. Remus thought that she looked more nervous than the rest. “P-Professor? Er. Y’see -- I’m Danielle Green,” she said in a rush, fiddling with the strap of her bookbag. “But it’ll say Daniel on your roll sheet. D’you mind… er…”

 

Remus reached behind himself for his roll sheet and checked it, finding the girl’s old name. “I see.” He grabbed a quill, loaded it with ink, and corrected the sheet, then looked up at her relieved face. “So just Danielle? You don’t want it shortened to Dani?”

 

Smiling, she shook her head. “No, sir. Thank you.”

 

“Of course.” Remus nodded at her, and she scurried to an open seat. Remus stood, and the class quieted. He looked them all over, eyebrows raised. “You all look exhausted. Come on now, it’s still early.” A ripple of reluctant laughter swept the room, and Remus smiled. “What class are you coming from?”

 

A few of them murmured “Transfiguration.”

 

Remus dramatically shook his head. “That explains it.” This time when the students laughed, it sounded as if they meant it. Smiling along with them, Remus said, “Now, I’m Professor Lupin, and welcome to Defense Against the Dark Arts.”

 

***

 

Lunch was quick -- Remus barely had time to catch Minerva and say Danielle’s name before she nodded quickly, distracted, and assured him that the roll sheets were being updated for the rest of the week’s classes. Remus had just taken his seat and dished some stew onto his plate when Albus Dumbledore took the seat beside him at the High Table, eschewing his own usual seat at the center. “Remus. I was hoping to speak with you today.”

 

Remus swallowed down his mouthful of stew. “Yes, sir.”

 

Dumbledore eyed him expectantly. “So how has your first morning been?”

 

“Good, sir,” Remus nodded, a small smile creeping over his face. “Very good. I feel like I’m… communicating to them what I want to communicate, and I think the students are enjoying the lessons.”

 

Dumbledore nodded approvingly. “Good, although nothing less than I’d expected. Now I believe you have a double period with the fifth year students this afternoon?”

 

“Yes, I do.” Remus swallowed another mouthful of stew. “Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs.”

 

“I see. Well, I shall let you be, although I do wish you the best of luck.” Dumbledore smiled and vacated the seat beside Remus to take his place at the center of the High Table. Remus glanced at his watch and ate faster.

 

His nerves returned to him as he hurried through the corridors back to his classroom. The first years had been one thing -- wide-eyed, naive, with nothing to compare him to. But if these fifth years were anything like he and his friends had been, they’d be well prepared to eat him alive without a second thought if they felt they weren’t being adequately prepared for their OWLs. Well, he comforted himself, he couldn’t be any worse than his immediate predecessor. 

 

When he got back to his still-empty classroom, he replaced the  _ Guide to Self-Protection _ on the shelf and withdrew the fifth-year text. In those last few moments of silence, he forced himself to take one deep breath, then another.

 

_ “OWL year,” Lily mused, crossing her legs where she sat on the floor of the Gryffindor common room. “Well, I suppose it’s good to know that arbitrary standardized tests that can dictate your whole future aren’t an exclusively Muggle phenomenon _ .”

 

Unlike the first years, the fifth years entered the room all in one go, the first person to arrive at the door holding it open for all the others. Like the first years, however, they were more or less silent. Remus supposed they were holding off to see what kind of disciplinarian he’d be before they made any decisions. They filtered into seats, and Remus watched them watching him, sizing him up. He hid a smile at the clump of four students in the back -- two girls, both black, and twin white boys. Remus had been friends with James Potter for seven years of school, and he knew what a cluster of Quidditch players looked like when he saw one.

 

“Welcome,” Remus said, once they were all settled, and they muttered something that sounded like “hello” back at him. “I am Professor Lupin. Given that you’ve had classes this morning, I’ll spare you my version of the ‘OWL year is difficult’ speech.” A few reluctant smiles emerged here and there, and Remus continued, “A bit of housekeeping I’d like to get out of the way before we get started, however. Professor Lockhart left me nothing of his lesson plans, and given that you all didn’t sit exams last year, I really have no idea where you all are in terms of preparedness for your exams in May.”

 

One of the Hufflepuff girls scoffed. “Sir, I highly doubt any of Lockhart’s plans would help you anyway.” Murmurs of agreement rippled through the room.

 

Remus allowed himself a quick grin. “Yes, I figured. So here is what I propose.” He moved back to his perch on the front of his desk. “I can spend a good part of this fall term reteaching the fourth year materials. It will of course put us a few months behind on the fifth year material, all of which we have to cover by the exam, so you’ll all have quite a bit more work and be asked to internalize concepts much more quickly than I’d prefer. Depending on how quickly we move, I may hold some optional evening review classes. How do we feel about that?” Most of the student perked up, looking interested, and Remus stood. 

 

“All right, let’s put it to a vote. Those in favor of the review and accelerated schedule -- oh. Well then.” The hands of almost everyone in the room shot up. “That’s an easy majority. I’ll have to put the same proposition to the other class -- the Ravenclaws and Slytherins -- but I’m going to assume that they’ll vote as you’ve voted. By the next time we meet I’ll have come up with some sort of assessment instrument so that I can gauge what we’ll need to focus on the most. Sound good?” Off their nods, he resumed his perch. “All right then. For a while, until I learn your names, please introduce yourselves when you raise your hands to speak. The fourth-year curriculum is supposed to focus on counter-jinxes, so who can -- without drawing your wand -- tell me the incantation for the Shield Charm?”

 

He looked around at them all expectantly, and after a moment of silence, a white Hufflepuff boy wearing both the badges of a Prefect and a Quidditch captain raised his hand. Remus nodded at him, and the boy said, “Er -- it’s  _ Protego _ , isn’t it? Oh -- and I’m Cedric Diggory.”

 

The blood froze in Remus’s veins as he met the boy’s gray eyes. He had heard Minerva say the boy’s name as she read off the names of the student leadership, but it hadn’t registered that this boy was Amos Diggory’s son. This was the son of the Head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. 

 

If anyone was going to discover what Remus was, to spread his secret, it would be this boy.

 

But this boy was now staring at Remus, waiting for Remus to comment on his answer, and Remus cleared his throat. “Yes. Very good. Now. Can anyone tell me the wand motion that we use for this charm?”

 

One of the black girls Remus had identified earlier as a Quidditch player raised her hand. “Angelina Johnson. It’s kind of a --” with her finger she sketched out in the air something that looked like an open circle with short lines on either end of the gap “-- an omega sign, isn’t it? Left to right as you face your opponent?”

 

“Excellent.” Remus smiled and stood, gesturing for all of them to follow suit. “Now I’m going to ask the group of you to split in half, and I’d rather you didn’t do it along House lines. Go on, now.” He waited as they shuffled around until there were two groups of ten, one to his left and one to his right. For the third time that day, he waved his wand and the desks and chairs moved to the sides of the room, leaving the floor clear.

 

“You two -- twins.” Remus beckoned forward the identical redheads, one of whom had wound up in each group. “What are your names?”

 

“I’m George Weasley,” said the one from the group on the left. “That’s Fred. He’s younger.”

 

Everyone, including Remus, laughed. “I may be younger but you’re the ugly one,” Fred retorted. “Age before beauty, and all that.”

 

Remus turned to another one of the Gryffindors. “Are they always like this?”

 

She nodded, giggling. Still grinning, Remus turned back to the boys. “All right. Fred, George -- throw rock, paper, scissors.”

 

Fred threw his shoulders back as if he was ready to march into battle, and George loomed threateningly towards him, both of them with their hands braced. Without anybody counting them off, they suddenly pounded their fists into their palms. Fred threw paper to George’s rock, and immediately threw his arms into the air, victorious. “Ha!” he jabbed at his brother. “I win!” He turned to Remus. “What do I win?”

 

“Right of first refusal,” Remus told him. “Team Fred, would you like to go first or second?”

 

Fred glanced over his shoulder, and the girl who had said her name was Angelina hissed, “first!” “First!” declared Fred, turning back to Remus. “We here on Team Fred would like to go first.”

 

“All right.” Remus once again perched on the edge of his desk. “Pair off, then face each other. Team George, come up to the front of the room behind my desk so that you’re all out of the way. Team Fred, I want every single one of you to look at me.” He waited until he was certain he had all their attention. “Let’s not start off this school year with someone landing in the hospital wing, all right? You are not to use anything more powerful than a jelly-legs. Understand?” A few of them nodded, and Remus raised his eyebrows. “I want to hear you.”

 

“Yes, sir,” they chorused, a few of them bouncing on the balls of their feet. Fred, who had paired with Angelina Johnson, rolled up his sleeves.

 

Remus sighed. “Good enough. Those of you lined up on my left, you’re casting the Shield Charms. Those of you on my right… have at it, I suppose.”

 

“Come on, Angelina!” shouted the fourth Gryffindor Quidditch player from behind Remus, and Angelina shot her a quick smile before pointing her wand at Fred Weasley and shouting “ _ Petrificus Totalus _ !” amidst a chorus of spells from her classmates. Fred managed to cast a Shield Charm, but down the line, one of the other Gryffindor boys wasn’t so lucky, and he jerked his hand back, swearing loudly, after Cedric Diggory hit it with a Stinging hex. 

 

Remus stood and was about to make his way to the boy’s side, but Cedric beat him to it. “Sorry,” the boy muttered, ducking his way through the jets of light from his classmates’ wands, and reached out to take the other boy’s hand. “You, all right, Chris?”

 

“Ah, yeah,” the boy named Chris sighed, inspecting his own hand before tapping it with his wand. “No big deal. Get back over there.”

 

Cedric, reassured, straightened and backed up to his place across the room. “Be faster this time, yeah?”

 

“Bring it on.”

 

Remus let it go on for another half hour or so -- until those he had assigned to cast Shield Charms could almost all do it accurately, the group of students he’d dubbed Team George cheering their classmates on behind him. Then he stuck two of his fingers in his mouth and blew, and the sharp whistle pierced the air. Everyone dropped their wands to their sides and looked up at him, and he grinned at them. 

 

“Very nicely done, everyone,” he began, standing. “All right. Now. Angelina, Fred was able to block you fairly consistently, right from the start. What did you perceive him as doing right?”

 

Her eyes widened. “You’re asking me?”

 

Remus shrugged. “Who better?”

 

“Er -- all right.” She faced back at Fred, and said thoughtfully, “I feel like his movements were really tightly controlled, you know? Like he was drawing the shape with his wand in the air, and he was taking care not to let it get too big.” Fred grinned, smug, and Angelina scooped a spare bit of parchment from a desk behind her, balled it up, and threw it at him.

 

“Excellent. That’s what I noticed as well.” Remus decided to disregard the paper ball. “Now, down the line a bit -- Miss, what’s your name?” he asked a Hufflepuff girl in the Shield Charm line. 

 

“Daisy Kelly,” she replied, brushing her hair out of her eyes. “Are you going to ask me what Will was doing right so I couldn’t block him for a while?” Remus gestured for her to go on, and she faced the Gryffindor boy she’d called Will. “I think it’s just that he was faster than me, really. And that’s something I have to work on.”

 

“Well observed,” he praised her, then looked over his shoulder. “Team George, anything to add here?”

 

A Hufflepuff girl raised her hand. “Rinko Fujimoto, and I may have been imagining it, but I feel like most of the people who were doing better were kind of… moving around a little? On their feet? Rather than expecting the wands to do the work for them.”

 

“Fantastic, Rinko. I was hoping someone would notice that.” Remus grinned before addressing the room at large. “One last thing -- I noticed that quite a few of you don’t have very tight grips on your wand. Is there a reason for that?”

 

A Gryffindor girl in the Shield Charm row rolled her eyes. “Lockhart told us it helped us move faster, and kept correcting our grips until we  _ had _ to do it. Oh, and I’m Adriana Archer. Adri.”

 

“Hmm.” Remus chewed on the inside of his mouth for a moment, weighing his words. “Well. That was…”

 

“Crap advice?” supplied Fred.

 

Remus huffed a laugh. “More or less. I’m not going to ask you all to unlearn that overnight, but it’s something I’d like you all to focus on. Now. Team Fred, switch sides. We’ll go for another half hour, then Team George will take over for the second hour of class.”

 

They did so, and Remus was pleased to notice that Team Fred performed much better after hearing the critique. Angelina managed to cast a Shield Charm so strong that she knocked Fred a few steps backwards. George whooped.

 

After half an hour, Remus called a halt to the exercise, and motioned for Team George to step forward. Fred and George pounded each other on the backs as they crossed paths, and then George squared off against another Gryffindor boy, black with dreadlocks. “Fight me, Lee.”

 

“Have at it.” Remus waved at them, and again, the room was filled with choruses of spells and flashes of light. Movements were tighter this time around, as if this round of students was determined to learn from their predecessors mistakes, and outperform them. Halfway through, Remus called a halt, and after another round of critiques, the members of Team George switched sides too.

 

Remus watched Cedric Diggory from the corner of his eye. The boy was standing with his shoulders crossed, observing his friends, and was one of the only people shouting only encouragement rather than heckling them. He seemed like a good kid, Remus decided, but he reminded himself to never forget who Cedric was.

 

Fathers and sons. Sirius had insisted that he wasn’t Orion either.

 

A few minutes before the class period was due to end, Remus called a halt. “Well done, all of you. Now watch yourselves. I’m going to put the desks back.”

 

Once he had waved his wand and the furniture once again anchored the room, he gestured for all of them to sit, and he himself took what was quickly becoming his customary perch on his desk. “Cedric,” he said, turning to the boy, “when does the Quidditch season start?”

 

Cedric frowned, considering. “I’m going to start training in about mid-October.” He leaned back to look over his shoulder. “Has Wood mentioned when he’s going to start you lot up?”

 

Angelina shook her head, but Fred snorted. “Today, probably, knowing him. First match is us, yeah? First weekend in November?”

 

Cedric nodded and looked back at Remus. “Why?”

 

Remus rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “Because I want to schedule these evening review sessions so that they don’t clash with anyone’s training schedules. I’ll check in with Oliver, Roger, and Marcus as well, and I’d like to work around all four schedules if I can.”

 

Cedric stared. “Really?”

 

Remus smiled wryly. “I just don’t want there to be a reason for any of you to skip the review sessions. I was a student here. I know how you lot can get.”

 

_ “James,” Lily huffed exasperatedly. “Four weeks. The NEWTs are in four weeks. And you want to be an Auror. Come on.” _

 

_ James paused on his way to the portrait hole, broomstick over his shoulder, to smirk back at her. “Yeah, but the Quidditch Cup is in a mere  _ two  _ weeks, and I’d be setting a poor example for my team if I rescheduled practice to study. Love you!” _

 

Remus looked out over his fifth-year students. “All right, I know we’re almost out of time, so for homework go ahead and read and summarize the first chapter of the fifth-year book. I appreciate the effort you all put in today. Really well done.”

 

The bell rang, and he nodded for them to leave. In the ensuing scuffle of bags being packed up, most of the students chorused “Thank you, Professor,” and Remus couldn’t help but smile.

 

As soon as the door shut behind the last of them, Remus rounded his desk and dropped into his chair with a sigh. He had done it. He had survived his first day.

 

He let his head fall against the back of his chair. He would just sit here, for a moment, and then he would go down to dinner. Just for a moment.

 

He didn’t realize he had dozed off until his classroom door opened, and he jerked awake, sitting up straight and blinking. But when he saw that it was Minerva McGonagall who was striding through his doorway, he relaxed a bit. “Minerva?”

 

“Good afternoon, Remus,” she said briskly. “I’m sorry to disturb you -- I know the feeling of just needing a moment after the first day -- but I just received a message from Dumbledore, asking the heads of house to come to his office. He’s asked that you join us.”

 

“Me?” Remus frowned, but he stood and followed her out of the room. “Why me?”

 

“I’m not quite clear,” Minerva replied, “but I’m certain that Hagrid will have been invited as well. I think this all has something to do with the Malfoy boy.”

 

Remus raised his eyebrows. “What happened?”

 

Minerva sighed and lowered her voice as they skirted a group of third years on their way down to dinner. “For Hagrid’s first lesson with his third years,” she told him with her voice lowered, “he decided to introduce them to hippogriffs.”

 

“Oh no.” Remus grimaced. Minerva nodded.

 

“From what I gather -- which isn’t much, as Snape was the one who met them at the hospital wing -- the boy insulted the hippogriff, after Hagrid had warned the students not to, and the hippogriff…”

 

“Reacted?” Remus finished, dry.

 

Minerva bit back a laugh. “Well, yes. Apparently it reared up and slashed the boy across the arm. Nothing Poppy won’t be able to put right in a moment, but I worry about the trouble the boy’s father will make with the Ministry.”

 

“Minerva…” Remus started, then fell silent, mulling over what he wanted to ask. She waited. Eventually, he said, “I understand that Malfoy was a school governor up until last year. Has he… that is, has his family just… gone back to the way they were?”

 

Minerva sighed. “Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy have managed to rehabilitate their image better than most, I’m afraid. Yes, Malfoy is a… well-respected member of wizarding society. I believe the Minister of Magic considers him a close personal friend.” Off Remus’s incredulous look, she added, “He is in the habit of giving generously to all sorts of worthy causes, you see.”

 

Remus shook his head slowly. “Incredible.” 

 

“Not really,” Minerva sniffed. “Igor Karkaroff is the headmaster of Durmstrang, last I heard.”

 

“You’re joking.”

 

“Unfortunately I am not.” She looked sideways at him. “Remus, have you been  _ deliberately  _ avoiding contact with the magical world?”

 

Remus fixed his face into a blank mask and stared at the corridor ahead of them. “It’s easier that way sometimes.”

 

He was grateful that she did not reply, and they walked the rest of the way to the gargoyle statue in silence. Remus was lost in thought until he heard Minerva say “Peppermint Toad,” and the stone figure leapt aside, allowing them to ascend the spiral staircase. 

He almost smiled at the memory of all the other times he had found himself in this stairwell before -- James, fourteen, with a firework’s soot on his face on the step below him. Peter, fifteen, trying not to giggle and look grave. Sirius, sixteen, eyes cast down, refusing to look at Remus, to let Remus see his shame. Snape on the step above them, shaking, McGonagall gripping his arm.

 

Remus’s smile faded.

 

When Minerva pushed the door open, the first person Remus saw was Albus Dumbledore, sitting behind his desk, the tips of his fingers pressed serenely together as he gazed out the window. Filius Flitwick was seated in one of the chairs in front of the desk, eyebrows knitted as he read a piece of parchment that appeared to have the seal of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement stamped into it. But it was the sight of the three people grouped in the seating area near the hearth that gave Remus pause.

 

Remus had never met Cornelius Fudge, but he had heard enough of the Minister’s ridiculous lime green bowler hat to identify the man. Fudge’s face bore the lines of an easily hoisted and not at all sincere smile, but currently his features were collapsed into a scowl. At his side, Amelia Bones had a monocle pressed to her eye as she examined her own sheaf of papers. Remus barely remembered her from school -- a stern, intimidating Hufflepuff who had been Head Girl his second year. He hadn’t been surprised when he had learned that she had become head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

 

The third wizard was graying but stiff, and he stood with his hands clasped firmly behind his back, staring deeply into the low fire crackling in the hearth. He didn’t appear to be breathing, and his pathologically straight moustache wasn’t moving on his face.

 

_ Dumbledore sighed. “The Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement has taken Sirius’s voluntary surrender to be an admission of guilt, and he has decided that there will not be a trial. Sirius is to be sent to Azkaban.” _

 

_ The air was suddenly rushing too fast through Remus’s throat, too fast -- he was going to choke on it, he was sure. Beside him, Andromeda Black Tonks let out a sound like a sob. “No! Sir -- you can’t --” she gasped. “You can’t let Crouch do that to him! You’re the head of the Wizengamot!  _ Demand  _ a trial for him!” _

 

Bartemius Crouch. The man who had ended it.

 

“Remus, Minerva,” Dumbledore greeted them both. “Do come in. We are simply waiting for Severus and Pomona.”

 

Remus glanced at Minerva. This couldn’t be about Hagrid. 

 

Fudge stepped towards Remus, evaluating, as so many others had done, the state of Remus’s robes. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

 

Minerva cleared her throat. “No, I don’t believe you have. Minister, this is Remus Lupin, a member of the Hogwarts Class of 1978, and our Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.”

 

“Ah yes.” Fudge smiled a politician’s smile and shook Remus’s hand. Just as he released it, the door opened again, and Pomona Sprout entered, Snape following her. His eyes snapped to Remus, and the familiar loathing glittered in them. Remus looked away, the old shame ebbing up in his chest.

 

“Good. We are all here.” Dumbledore, grave now, stood, and Flitwick folded the piece of parchment he had been inspecting. “The Minister and these two heads of departments have shared some information with me, and I feel as though you all should have access to it.”

 

“Madam Bones?” Fudge turned to her.

 

“Yes,” Bones said briskly, distributing sheets from the sheaf of parchment in her arms, one to each of them. Remus looked down at his, and felt the horrible, familiar jolt of nausea deep in his gut at the sight of Sirius’s dead eyes in his mug shot. “There has been a sighting,” Bones told them, and Remus’s head snapped up to her, his heart pounding.

 

“Where?” demanded Snape.

 

“Falkland. Roughly twenty miles west of St. Andrews.” Bones surveyed them all. “And a hundred fifty miles southeast of Hogwarts, as the thestral flies.”

 

Pomona went pale. “You think he’s coming here?”

 

“We see no reason to expect otherwise,” said Crouch, who had yet to turn and face the room. 

 

There was a pause, and then Minerva asked, “Who saw him?”

 

Bones sighed. “A Muggle woman. A housewife -- she called the tip line, and by the time my Aurors had been informed, he was already gone.”

 

“It seems odd, though, that he would still be in Scotland,” squeaked Flitwick. “After all, Falkland is right on the Firth of Forth, if I’m not mistaken. That has to be very near where he made landfall from Azkaban. Why stay in the area?”

 

Now Crouch did move, and he jerked his head to shoot a sharp look at Flitwick. “Do you think we are not doing everything we can to answer that?” he demanded, his voice low. 

 

“Barty…” Bones’s voice had the exasperated air of a woman who has told a man the same thing one time too many, but Crouch ignored her.

 

“We have reassigned  _ every member _ of the Ministry of Magic to help the Aurors find him!” Crouch hissed. “We have alerted our magical allies abroad -- we have posted Dementors around this school -- but by all means,  _ Professor _ , if you have any better ideas, I am sure we would all be delighted to hear them!”

 

“Enough, Barty,” said Dumbledore. His voice was calm, but Remus felt the steel. He looked to Fudge. “When will the  _ Daily Prophet  _ have it?”

 

“We are hoping to keep it embargoed for at least another day,” Fudge puffed. “Goodness knows what the public reaction will be -- a hundred and fifty miles away from Hogwarts! And we have no idea where he’s gone to next!”

 

“Or how he is moving,” murmured Snape, and though Remus did not look at him, he still felt pinned by Snape’s gaze. “If only we had some clue as to how he has managed to evade capture for a full month.”

 

Fudge turned to Dumbledore. “You may rest assured, Albus, that the Dementors will keep him out of the castle grounds.”

 

“Regrettably, Cornelius, that is not as reassuring as one might hope. Amelia, is there anything we can do to support you from here?” Dumbledore asked quietly.

 

“Not yet,” she responded thoughtfully. “Although if this goes on for much longer, I’ll need you to supply me a list of who Black’s closest friends were at school. They may have some idea of how he’s operating, what he’ll do next.”

 

Remus swallowed hard and met Dumbledore’s clear blue eyes. Dumbledore studied him. “I see.”

 

_ “So… that’s it?” Sirius’s gaze darted from Dumbledore, sitting calmly at his desk, to James, who stood behind a chair, gripping its back, arms braced stiff as he stared down. “James and Lily have to go into hiding? And you can’t tell us why?” _

 

_ “I’m afraid not,” Dumbledore responded when James did not. “James insisted that the group of you be told, and he assured me that he trusts you all. I expect you all to keep this to yourselves?” _

 

_ “Of course,” Peter mumbled, and Remus felt himself nod. _

 

Bones passed a tired hand over her eyes. “That’s all we really have to share with you, then. I should get back to London. Minister, Scrimgeour has a report to share with me, if you would like to join me…”

 

“Of course, my dear Madam Bones.” Fudge reached into his pocket and withdrew a fist full of Floo powder. “Albus, I would appreciate it if you would join me for breakfast tomorrow morning before the Wizengamot session?”

 

Dumbledore inclined his head, and Fudge made polite little bows to both Minerva and Pomona before he threw the green powder into the fireplace. The fire leapt up green, and Bones stepped in and said “Ministry of Magic!” and the flames whisked her away. Fudge placed one foot into the fire, and turned back to Crouch. “Barty?”

 

“Yes,” muttered Crouch. Fudge, satisfied, stepped fully into the fireplace and announced his destination, but Crouch did not follow him. Instead, he faced Dumbledore, and Remus thought that Crouch had forgotten that anyone else was in the room.

 

“We’ve been here before, Dumbledore.” He swallowed. “May I rely upon you to be as committed to justice as you were twelve years ago?”

 

Dumbledore inclined his head. “Of course.”

 

Crouch held his eyes for one more moment, then, still ignoring the rest of them, followed Fudge into the flames. Once he was gone, Dumbledore turned to face his staff.

 

“I trust that no one in this room would help Sirius Black enter it,” he said quietly. “But Amelia makes a good point when she says that those of us who taught Sirius, who knew him --” his eyes found Remus again “-- who befriended him, may know more than we realize.” He paused just long enough for all the others to stare at Remus too. “Remus, I truly hate to ask this, but… do you have any idea as to how he’s managing it?”

 

_ “Oh, that was wicked!” Peter laughed as he dropped backwards onto Sirius’s bed. Through the window, the pearly pink of dawn was just beginning to tinge the sky. “If Madam Puddifoot had looked over just one moment earlier…” _

 

_ “It’s not funny, Wormtail.” Remus didn’t mean to snap, but he was still shaken. “I could have hurt her.” _

 

_ “But you didn’t,” James reminded him, clapping him on the back. “It was fine. Near miss, is all. Just a scare. I was there. Sirius was there. You weren’t getting past us. Peter was providing moral support. It was great.” _

 

_ “Prongs...” _

 

_ “Ah come on, Moony,” Sirius interrupted, leaning up against his bed post with that casual grace that Remus knew he’d never be able to master, however hard he tried. “What’s life without a little risk?” _

 

Remus stared into Dumbledore’s eyes and lied. “No, sir.”


	7. The Boggart in the Wardrobe

_ Remus shoved his hands into his pockets as he and Peter slowly approached the gated drive that led to the doors of the Potters’ country manor in Devon. July in the south of England was warm, humid, and thunderclouds loomed on the horizon, threatening.  _

 

_ Remus hadn’t really spoken to Sirius since the morning after Sirius had tried to make Remus into a murderer -- since Sirius had told Snape to slip into the tunnel beneath the Whomping Willow, so that Remus would smell the human flesh and kill him. Remus still felt the ice creep up his spine when he thought about that night. Padfoot had told them, laughing his bark-like laugh, what he had let Snape overhear, and Prongs had transformed into James, shouting, furious, and Moony had smelled his flesh too, and Snape’s as he approached down the tunnel, and James had lunged into the trapdoor, and Moony, snarling, had leapt to follow him, the red tainting his vision, and then -- _

 

_ Remus shook himself. It hadn’t happened. It could have happened, but it hadn’t. _

 

_ And then he had gotten James’s letter yesterday, saying that Sirius had run away from home, and was staying with the Potters, and that Fatapal would send a Portkey the next day, because Sirius wanted to see them both. _

 

_ And the Portkey had come, and Remus had strongly considered not touching his hand to it, but he had done so anyway, and landed on the country road at the same moment that Peter did.  Remus hadn’t heard Peter’s anxious chatter, hadn’t responded to any of Peter’s questions, and so Peter had gone quiet too, and the two of them made their way to the gates in silence. Peter reached out and wrapped a hand around one of the wrought iron posts, and the gates swung open, and the path stretched out in front of them. Remus shuddered as the two of them passed through the magical barriers that protected the house. _

 

_ The double doors were propped open when they reached them, but Remus still knocked his knuckles against the wood. “C’min!” James’s voice shouted. “We’re in the drawing room!” _

 

_ Remus let Peter precede him into the hall. They had all been to this house before; Eshnaa Potter had invited them all to stay for a week the previous summer. The house had been warm and inviting then, and Remus supposed it still was, but he still hung back as Peter strode into the drawing room, where Sirius was huddled in a window seat and James was draped over the armchair beside him. Streaks of bright red had scratched their way down the right side of Sirius’s face, and a faint bruise bloomed on his left temple. Both injuries had obviously been treated, and treated well, but Remus still forced down a wince when he saw them. _

 

_ “Sirius?” demanded Peter. “Are you all right?” _

 

_ “‘M fine,” Sirius mumbled, but his eyes were on Remus, who did not meet his gaze as he eased his way into the room and perched on the edge of an ottoman. Peter took his place on the other end of Sirius’s window seat and looked back and forth between Sirius and James. _

 

_ James took a deep breath and ran his hand over his face, knocking his glasses askew. “Sirius went back to Orion and Walburga’s London house last night,” he began to explain. “He’d been with Andi and Ted and their kid. Orion didn’t like that. He wanted Sirius to say he’d never see Andi again, and--” _

 

_ “Sirius, did you pick a fight with him?” Peter asked, exasperated. _

 

_ James glared at Peter and kept talking. “And when Sirius refused, Orion hit him. Knocked him into a mirror.” _

 

_ Remus sucked in a breath. _

 

_ “And so Sirius came here,” James finished. “He’s going to live with us from now on. Sorry for all the cloak-and-dagger bullshit in the letters,” he nodded at both Remus and Peter, “but my mum and dad want as few people to know as possible for a while.” _

 

_ Sirius’s eyes kept darting to Remus as James explained what had happened, but Remus did not speak. Ever since the fight, the argument that had devolved so quickly into a vicious shouting match after the May full moon, Remus had had nothing to say to Sirius. _

 

_ But now James and Peter both fell silent too, and the air was heavy with impending rain and the words that no one knew how to say. _

 

_ Finally, Remus spoke for the first time. “That’ll scar,” he muttered, gesturing vaguely at the impressions of the cuts on Sirius’s temple. _

 

_ Instinctively, Sirius’s fingertips reached up to brush the marks. “I know.” His eyes were cautious. “Moony --” _

 

_ “Don’t --” Remus jerked to his feet and paced to the other side of the room. “Don’t call me that.” _

 

_ “I just wanted you to scare Snape!” Sirius burst out. “I didn’t know he already thought he’d figured it out, Remus! I swear!” _

 

_ “Lads,” James cut in, “we really don’t have to do this now --” _

 

_ “It’s not that,” Remus snapped, ignoring James completely. “Not really. What if I’d really hurt him? What if I’d killed him? What if I’d hurt  _ James _ , Sirius? What then?” _

 

_ Sirius blanched. “You wouldn't have. You’d’ve stopped yourself.” _

 

_ “You’ve always been this way,” huffed Remus. “You never really got that I’m dangerous, did you? That I can’t control it? The Animagi thing was your idea, and I’m still so grateful, but… it didn’t change what I am.” _

 

_ “You’re Remus,” said Peter quietly. _

 

_ “Most of the time. The other twenty-nine nights of the month, yeah. But there’s always that one night that I’m this thing who could easily kill its best friends without blinking an eye.” _

 

_ Again, there was a moment of silence. Sirius stared at Remus, wide-eyed. “I… I’m sorry.” Shock rippled through his voice. “I didn’t realize it was still like that. Moony -- Remus -- I thought you’d just scare him, at most scratch him up a little, and he’d run. That’s really all I thought would happen. I swear. I  _ swear _.” _

 

_ Slowly, Remus walked back towards the other three. Outside, far off, thunder rumbled out of the clouds. He didn’t look at Sirius, but he did sit back down. _

 

_ “I feel like I’ve spent my whole life,” Remus said quietly, gaze fixed on the ornate patterns in Eshnaa Potter’s carpet, “trying so hard not to --” he cut himself off and started over. “It’s always felt like everyone is just waiting for the other shoe to drop, for me to become a murderer. And I don’t want to be that. I desperately don’t want to be that.” _

 

_ Another heavy moment of silence. Then, so quietly Remus almost didn’t hear him, Sirius whispered, “I know what that’s like.” _

 

_ The words filtered through Remus, and he looked up, and met Sirius’s gray eyes. The eyes he had inherited from his father. Remus swallowed. “I know you do.” _

 

_ He braced his elbows on his knees and brought his hands up to his face, breathing deep. Then, abruptly, he stood, strode over to Sirius, and reached out to grip his forearm. Remus hoisted Sirius upright and then pulled him into a hug. _

 

_ “I’m sorry,” Sirius mumbled, hugging him back. Remus felt Sirius’s hand fist against his shoulder blade.  _

 

_ “I know.” Remus held onto Sirius for a moment longer than he had to, then clapped Sirius’s back before releasing him. “Don’t do it again, yeah?” _

 

_ “I won’t,” Sirius promised, eyes wide, earnest. Remus grinned at him, and finally he saw Sirius’s face relax. _

 

_ Beaming, Sirius flopped back onto the window seat, and Remus dropped down to his ottoman again. Peter looked back and forth between the two of them. “So… are we all okay again?” _

 

_ Sirius barked a laugh and whacked Peter with a throw pillow, and James slumped back down in his seat. Remus allowed himself one more smile before turning back to Sirius, grave now. “But Padfoot… honestly. Are you all right?” _

 

_ Sirius’s smile faded too, and he looked out the window just as another roll of thunder shook the glass panes. “I s’pose,” he muttered. “I was always going to have to pick a side anyway.” _

 

Remus hadn’t slept that night after Fudge and Bones had told them that Sirius was still so close to the castle. After Dumbledore had dismissed them all from his office, he had begged off from Minerva, saying he needed to find Filch, to ask him about boggarts in the castle. And he had done that, to be sure, and then gone to bed, and stared at the shadowy ceiling until dawn tinged the horizon line. 

 

Tuesday had passed, and Wednesday. The double period of the Ravenclaw and Slytherin fifth years had also voted to review the fourth-year materials, and Graham Montague and Jeremy Stretton had promised to collect Quidditch training schedules from their respective captains. On Tuesday morning, the sixth-year NEWT class had only five students in it, but when the class had reconvened on Thursday morning, fifteen students -- almost every student in the  sixth year -- had walked into Remus’s classroom, and he raised his eyebrows and looked down at his updated roll sheet.

 

“What happened?” he had asked them, in lieu of a greeting.

 

One of the newcomers, a Ravenclaw girl wearing a Prefect badge, had shifted uncomfortably. “You see, sir, a lot of us had dropped the subject after we took the OWLs, because of Professor Lockhart,” she had muttered. “But then everyone who was here on Tuesday told us about… well, basically they said that you seemed like a really good teacher, so we all…”

 

Even through the haze of tiredness that had followed him since Monday, Remus had had to bite back a smile. “I see,” he had murmured, ignoring the slight flush he felt creeping up in his cheeks. “In that case, you’re all welcome.”

 

He kept as busy as possible, going so far as to ask Minerva to teach him the names of the other Gryffindor third years to lessen the strangeness of his already knowing Harry’s name. But it didn’t help that the  _ Daily Prophet _ on Wednesday morning finally published the story of Sirius being seen by a Muggle in Scotland, so close to Hogwarts. The story had rehashed everything, again, the deaths of Peter and the Muggles, the breakout, the manhunt. Remus had wondered, around the dull ache beneath his ribs that was so familiar now, if they’d ever get tired of spending column inches the same way.

 

Remus had been so distracted that Thursday afternoon had crept up on him and suddenly it was here -- the day he’d have Harry in his class. He could feel the tired ache in his bones, even though the full moon was weeks away, and he found it ironic that even after all this time Sirius Black could disrupt his most carefully cultivated calm veneer.

 

He was late coming back to his own classroom that day -- he had needed to run to the staffroom to ensure that the boggart was still there in the wardrobe. When he walked through the door, the class was already seated with their books out. A hum of conversation spread through the room, which died down almost immediately as he placed his case down on the teacher’s desk. He found a smile for them. 

 

“Good afternoon,” he greeted them. “Would you please put all your books back in your bags? Today’s will be a practical lesson. You will need only your wands.” 

 

The two boys at the table closest to Remus, one white and one black -- Remus thought he remembered that their names were Seamus and Dean -- exchanged excited looks as the whole room followed Remus’s directive. Over the sounds of bags being zipped up, Remus performed a quick head count. There were only eight third-year Gryffindors -- only three girls. He kept forgetting that this was a generation of children whose parents had lived in a world at war. Of course there were fewer students. 

 

_ “Prongs, are you joking?” Sirius demanded, incredulous. “You didn’t use the contraceptive charm? We’re at war!” _

 

_ “I highly doubt he forgot that we’re at war,” Remus interrupted, quiet. Sirius threw an irritated look at him _ .

 

Remus shook himself and surveyed them all. Once they were ready, he straightened up. “Right, then. If you’d follow me.”

 

Their excited murmurs drifted up behind Remus as he led them from the room and along the corridor. Minerva had told him that this group had never had a practical lesson before, save for when Lockhart had apparently let a cage of Cornish pixies loose in the classroom. He was still trying to picture that disaster when he led the group around a corner and immediately encountered Peeves the Poltergeist.

 

Remus kept walking, but Peeves didn’t look up from where he floated upside down, nor did he cease his efforts to shove the wad of chewing gum into the keyhole, until Remus had very nearly reached him. At this point, Peeves righted himself, and grinned. “Loony, loopy Lupin!” he began to sing. “Loony, loopy Lupin, loony, loopy Lupin --”

 

One of the students gasped, and Remus felt the lot of them sneaking glances at him, but he smiled. He knew from personal experience that Peeves was capable of much, much worse.

 

_ “Oh, bloody -- fuck!” James yelled, freezing water still splashing from his hair and clothing onto the corridor floor as Peeves zoomed away. _

 

“I’d take that gum out of the keyhole if I were you, Peeves. Mr. Filch won’t be able to get to his brooms.” 

 

To no one’s real surprise, Peeves flipped himself upside down and blew a loud raspberry at Remus’s face. Slightly exasperated, Remus drew his wand and glanced over his shoulder at the group of wide-eyed students.

 

“This is a useful little spell,” he told them as he pointed his wand at Peeves. “Please watch closely.  _ Waddiswasi! _ ”

 

The chewing gum dislodged itself from the keyhole and zoomed out into the open air and deep into Peeves’s left nostril. Peeve’s head jerked back from the force of it, and he flipped backwards in midair before zooming down the corridor, dropping curse words in his wake. 

 

Startled laughter erupted from the students, and one of the boys, amazed, said, “Cool, sir!”

 

Remus glanced down at him and smiled. “Thank you, Dean. Now. Shall we proceed?” he added, looking up at them all.

 

The rest of the short journey to the staffroom was uneventful, save for the impressed muttering that Remus pretended not to hear. When they reached the staffroom, Remus opened the door for them and stood aside. “Inside, please.”

 

The students filed past him into the room. Harry, his shock of black hair hanging into his bright green eyes, was near the back of the group, with Ron and Hermione. He was small for his age -- Remus thought that he was smaller than James had been, at thirteen.

 

Remus couldn’t let Harry have a go at the boggart, he realized. What kind of teacher would he be if he allowed Lord Voldemort to appear in a room full of children? If he exposed Harry, again, to what had probably been the biggest trauma in the boy’s short life? The dementor on the train hadn’t even been a full week ago.

 

When Remus followed the class into the room and made to close the door, a cold voice spoke to him from one of the chairs by the fireplace. “Leave it open, Lupin,” said Snape. “I’d rather not witness this.”

 

Remus reminded himself to put his polite professional expression in place and turned to Snape just as Snape stood and made to stride past the class. But at the last moment before crossing the threshold, Snape smirked and looked back. “Possibly no one’s warned you, Lupin, but this class contains Neville Longbottom. I would advise you not to entrust him with anything too difficult.” The smirk widened. “Not unless Miss Granger is hissing instructions in his ear.

 

Remus felt his eyebrows shoot up. Publicly humiliating a student in a class that wasn’t even his own? Even for Snape, that was disgusting. 

 

But when Remus quickly glanced around at his students, their reactions told him more than Snape’s words could have. Neville was flush with embarrassment, and Harry, Dean, and Ron were glaring, but not one of the eight kids looked surprised. Angry, but not surprised.

 

Swiftly, Remus made a mental change to his lesson plan for the day. “I was hoping that Neville would assist me with the first stage of the operation, and I am sure he will perform it admirably.” He stared Snape down.  _ Leave _ .

 

Snape spared Remus one last sneer, then in a dramatic swirl of his batlike cloak, finally swept from the room. Remus conditioned his face and turned back to the class. “Now then.”

 

He beckoned the students to follow him along the length of the room to the wardrobe, and the boggart chose that moment to convulse, causing the wardrobe to shudder and bang violently against the wall. Parvati and Seamus both jumped backward in alarm. “Nothing to worry about,” he tried to reassure them. “There’s a boggart in there.”

 

Nobody looked particularly comforted. Dean and Parvati exchanged a glance and Neville shot a terrified look at Remus as the door handle rattled. Ignoring them, Remus went on, “Boggarts like dark, enclosed spaces. Wardrobes, the gap beneath beds, the cupboards under sinks -- I”ve even met one that had lodged itself in a grandfather clock.” That had also been the day that Remus had discovered that Mary MacDonald’s biggest fear was Bellatrix Lestrange. He shoved the memory aside. “ _ This _ one moved in yesterday afternoon, and I asked the headmaster if the staff would leave it to give my third years some practice.” He surveyed the group in front of him, half of the members of which were trying not to look like they were edging backwards. “So, the first question we must ask ourselves is, what  _ is _ a boggart?”

 

Hermione Granger, Harry’s friend, put up her hand. “It’s a shape-shifter. It can take the shape of whatever it fears will frighten us most.”

 

Remus smiled at Hermione. “Couldn’t have put it better myself,” he said, and she beamed. “So the boggart sitting in the darkness within has not yet assumed a form. He does not yet know what will frighten the person on the other side of the door. Nobody knows what a boggart looks like when he is alone, but when I let him out, he will immediately become whatever each of us most fears.” Neville gave a small sputter of terror, which Remus chose to ignore. “This means that we have a huge advantage over the boggart before we begin. Have you spotted it, Harry?”

 

Harry looked surprised to be called out, but Remus had to do it. He couldn’t ask the boy to face Lord Voldemort, not here, not in front of all his friends, and he had to cover somehow. 

 

Hermione’s hand was up in the air again and she was almost dancing on her toes. Remus bit back a smile as he watched Harry look pointedly anywhere but at her. “Er,” Harry started, “because there are so many of us, it won’t know what shape it should be?”

 

Remus smiled at him. “Precisely. It’s always best to have company when you’re dealing with a boggart. He becomes confused. Which should he become, a headless corpse or a flesh-eating slug? I once saw a boggart make that very mistake -- tried to frighten two people at once and turned himself into half a slug. Not remotely terrifying.”

 

_ Sirius almost fell out of his armchair laughing. “Wormtail, I cannot believe -- a slug? Seriously?” _

 

_ Remus, hoping to spare Peter’s feelings, bit back his own laugh as the half slug flopped around on the carpet in front of them. He waved his wand at the boggart, which transformed into a full moon with a loud crack. _

  
  


“The charm that repels a boggart is simple, yet it requires force of mind. You see, the thing that really finishes a boggart is  _ laughter _ .” Remus made sure to meet the eyes of every one of his students, hoping they were hearing him. This wasn’t about magical power, not really. “What you need to do is force it to assume a shape that you find amusing. We will practice the charm without wands first.” A few of the students shifted, and Remus saw Seamus square his shoulders. “After me, please…  _ riddikulus! _ ”

 

“ _ Riddikulus!” _ they chanted back at him.

 

Remus smiled. “Good. Very good. But that was the easy part, I’m afraid. And this is where you come in, Neville.” 

 

Neville, trembling, followed Remus’s directive to come forward, and Remus wondered for a moment what the world had done to this boy to make him so terrified of his own shadow. “Right, Neville. First things first. What would you say is the thing that frightens you most in the world?”

 

He was expecting Neville to say Bellatrix Lestrange’s name, or possibly the names of the Healers who had been charged with the care of Frank and Alice for twelve years, but when Neville murmured something, Remus couldn’t make it out. “Didn’t catch that, Neville, sorry.”

 

Neville looked wildly over his shoulder, and Lavender caught his eye to give him an encouraging nod. Swallowing hard, Neville faced back to Remus’s general direction without meeting his eye and mumbled “Professor Snape” at the carpet.

 

The rest of the students laughed, but Remus was taken aback. This boy’s parents had been tortured out of their minds by Death Eaters after the war was supposedly over, and from what Remus had heard, were almost entirely non-communicative. They had been that way for over eleven years now. But Neville had named his Potions teacher as his greatest fear.

 

What in the hell was Dumbledore doing at this school?

 

“Professor Snape,” Remus muttered. He had to fix this. Remus had only met Augusta Longbottom once, but he didn’t think he would forget that hat of hers for as long as he lived. “Neville, I believe you live with your grandmother?” 

 

“Er -- yes,” Neville muttered. “But I don’t want the boggart to turn into her either.”

 

Remus forced himself to smile and treat what Neville had said as a joke, but he made a mental note to have a private conversation with the boy at some point. “No, no. You misunderstand me. I wonder, could you tell us what sort of clothes your grandmother usually wears?”

 

Neville was clearly surprised, but he answered anyway. “Well… always the same hat.” His brow furrowed as he tried to remember. “A tall one with a stuffed vulture on top. And a long dress -- green, normally -- and sometimes a fox-fur scarf.”

 

Remus nodded. “And a handbag?”

 

“A big red one.”

 

Remus smiled, genuine this time. “Right, then. Can you picture those clothes very clearly, Neville? Can you see them in your mind’s eye?”

 

Neville stared at Remus as though very concerned with what the hell was going to happen next, but did say “Yes?” very slowly.

 

Remus nodded, businesslike. “When the boggart bursts out of this wardrobe, Neville, and sees you, it will assume the form of Professor Snape. And you will raise your wand thus --” Remus drew his own wand to demonstrate the movement that accompanied the charm “-- and cry  _ Riddikulus _ and concentrate hard on your grandmother’s clothes.” Neville looked at Remus as if he were mad, but Remus continued. “If all goes well, Professor Boggart Snape will be forced into that vulture-topped hat, and that green dress, with that big red handbag.” 

 

A burst of laughter spread through the room, and Remus smiled with them. Behind him, the wardrobe banged loudly against the wall. 

 

Remus turned to the class at large. “If Neville is successful, the boggart is likely to shift his attention to each of us in turn. I would like all of you to take a moment now to think of the thing that scares you most, and imagine how you might force it to look comical.” 

 

The room went quiet, and most of the students shut their eyes. Remus took advantage of the stillness to focus on Harry. 

 

The boy’s eyes were screwed shut behind his glasses, and the messy hair that was so like James’s hung in his forehead but did not fully obscure the scar. Harry had faced Voldemort three times already in his short life. If Dumbledore hadn’t made Remus promise to keep his distance from the boy, he could have been there, he could have helped… 

 

Remus watched as Harry shuddered, reliving God-knows-what, and glanced around furtively to ensure that he hadn’t been seen. 

 

Ron, beside Harry, muttered something that sounded like “Take its legs off,” and Remus thought he saw Harry swallow a smile as he glanced at his friend.

 

Remus glanced at the clock. “Everyone ready?” he asked the room at large. The students for the most part nodded and began rolling up their sleeves, various degrees of determination shaping their features.

 

Remus turned to Neville, who had drawn his wand, courage overtaking the fear in his face. “Neville, we’re going to back away. Let you have a clear field, all right? I’ll call the next person forward.” He glanced around at the rest of them. “Everyone back, now, so Neville can get a clear shot.”

 

The seven other students did fall back, Harry among them, and Neville braced himself. Remus stood to the side and pointed his wand at the wardrobe door’s handle. “On the count of three, Neville,” he said, watching the boy’s face to ensure that he was ready. “One -- two -- three --  _ now!” _

 

He shot sparks at the door, which sprang open. Snape, black-robed and greasy as ever, stepped out, glaring at Neville, who backed away, his strength apparently deserting him. Snape advanced on Neville, hatred in his face, and made to draw his wand.

 

Remus stepped forward, prepared to intervene, but it seemed that Neville pulled himself together enough to squeeze out the incantation. “ _ R -- r -- riddikulus! _ ”

 

The familiar sound of a boggart cracking split the room, and Snape tripped over the moth-eaten lace hem of the velvet green dress he was suddenly wearing. The vulture perched on the hat wobbled atop his head, and the handbag swung about on his wrists. 

 

The rest of the students shouted with laughter, and the boggart hesitated again, staring around at them all. Remus swallowed down his own laughter and called the next student. “Parvati! Forward!”

 

Neville retreated as Parvati moved up, determined. Snape faced her for only a moment, and then there was another crack, and he was replaced by a towering, bloodstained mummy Inferius. It bore down on Parvati, reaching for her, but she steeled herself. “ _ Riddikulus! _ ”

 

The bandage at the mummy’s ankles began to unravel, and it tripped itself up, stumbled, and finally fell, its head rolling off. Parvati, relieved, laughed along with the others. 

 

“Seamus!” Remus shouted, and Parvati moved to join Lavender as Seamus rushed forward. 

 

_ Crack _ ! The boggart transformed into a sickly green banshee, which opened its mouth and unleashed a blood-curdling shriek -- 

 

“ _ Riddikulus! _ ” Seamus yelled, and the banshee choked, clawed fingers scrabbling at its own throat -- it had lost its voice.

 

Without Remus calling anyone else forward, the boggart shifted spontaneously, cracking into a rat, then a rattlesnake, then a single bloody eyeball, all without prompting. Seamus, still laughing, backed out of the way. Remus grinned. “It’s confused! We’re getting there! Dean!”

 

Seamus clapped Dean on the shoulder as Dean stepped up, wand already drawn. The boggart sensed him and --  _ crack _ \-- became a severed hand, crawling on its own towards Dean.

 

“ _ Riddikulus _ !”

 

With a snap, the hand was caught in a mousetrap. 

 

“Excellent!” laughed Remus. “Ron, you next!” 

 

Ron leapt past Hermione into the center of the room. The boggart gave another great  _ crack! _

 

Parvati, Lavender, and Neville all shouted.

 

The boggart had taken the form of an acromantula, six feet tall and clicking its pincers menacingly. Ron, immobile, stared up at in terror, and again, Remus moved to intervene.

 

But Ron shook himself, and raised his wand, and shouted,  _ “Riddikulus! _ ”

 

The acromantula’s legs vanished and it collapsed onto itself before it rolled away from Ron. Lavender, giggling, darted out of its way and it came to a rest before Harry, who raised his wand, his face set.

 

_ No. _

 

“Here!” Remus called to the boggart, and it shifted its attention to him.

 

_ Crack!  _ The full moon hung in midair, glowing softly. 

 

“ _ Riddikulus, _ ” Remus muttered, waving his wand at it, half of his mind occupied with hoping that Harry was all right. 

 

There was another loud  _ Crack! _ and the boggart dropped to the floor as a cockroach. Remus backed away. “Forward, Neville, and finish him off!” 

 

Neville leapt forward, and something about the determined set of his jaw made him look so much like Alice that Remus gasped. 

 

_ Crack _ ! There was Snape again sinister and greasy as ever, but his black robes flapped for only a moment before Neville shouted  _ “Riddikulus! _ ” Augusta’s clothes were back, but only for a moment, as Neville burst into laughter. 

 

Finally, the boggart exploded, and smoke from the blast spread through the room along with the sound of the rest of the class applauding Neville. Remus beamed.

 

“Excellent!” he shouted, joining in the applause. “Excellent, Neville. Well done, everyone.” He grinned at them all, but from the corner of his eye he saw that Harry was not smiling back. “Let me see…” Remus muttered, avoiding the boy’s eyes. “Five points to Gryffindor for every person to tackle the boggart -- ten for Neville because he did it twice,” he added, and Neville grinned widely. “And five each to Hermione and Harry.”

 

Harry frowned again, confused. “But I didn’t do anything.”

 

“You and Hermione answered my questions correctly at the start of class,” Remus replied, still not quite looking at him. “Very well, everyone, an excellent lesson. Homework, kindly read the chapter on boggarts and summarize it for me, to be handed in on Monday.” He smiled out on all of them once more. “That will be all.”

 

A buzz of excited chatter filled the room as they all moved to hoist their bookbags back over their shoulders and crowd their way through the doorway and back into the hall. Remus could hear them talking over each other, elated, repeating the stories of their own individual success.

 

He hung back and let them go. When the door finally shut behind Dean, Remus sagged back to lean against the staff table. Breathing deep, he passed a hand over his face.

 

He hadn’t thought this far ahead, he realized. He hadn’t thought about what it would be like to see James Potter’s son look at him with no recognition in his eyes and call him ‘Professor Lupin.’


	8. Flight of the Fat Lady

Well, he had very nearly made it through his first two months.

 

Remus thought that his classes seemed to be going well -- almost all the students were enthusiastic and engaged, and the first round of essays he’d collected had resulted in high marks for nearly everyone. He had paid special attention to the essay he’d set his third years on the difference between Red Caps and kappas. Hermione Granger’s had been far and away the best, and as he read it he could almost feel her chafing against the twelve-inch limit he had set.

 

But Harry’s essay had been what interested Remus most out of the bunch. It was clear and well-thought-out, but there was something restrained about it, as if the boy didn’t trust himself to articulate his original thought to the fullest. And the handwriting… Harry and Lily shaped their g’s the same way. Remus thought that maybe it was a silly thing to notice, and yet there it was.

 

Harry tended to be quiet in class, and almost never spoke up unless explicitly called on, but when he was he had the right answer. Remus wasn’t sure how much of the boy’s reticence was due to his friendship with Hermione, who Remus could always count on for a correct answer, or the fact that students like Dean and Parvati were always so eager to participate and it was easy for Harry to fade into the background, and how much of it was due to his life in Petunia Dursley’s household. Minerva had let slip once that Harry’s first Hogwarts letter had been addressed to “the cupboard under the stairs,” and Remus had choked on his tea. 

 

“It’s horrific,” Minerva had continued, furious, in the same conversation. “And Sybill Trelawney predicting his death at every opportunity --”

 

“What in God’s name?” Remus had interrupted, growing cold. 

 

Minerva had rolled her eyes. “The third year Gryffindors came to me right after their first Divination lessons. Apparently Sybill made quite a dramatic show of reading Harry’s tea leaves and saw that nasty great black dog omen, the Grim or whatever it’s called --”

 

Remus had stilled.

 

“--in Harry’s cup, and she wasted no time in telling the whole class that it was an omen of death. I asked Albus to do something but once again, he refuses to check her, says that Hogwarts needs her and that she’ll have to stay.”

 

Remus had nodded and forced his breathing to slow. Trelawney was a fraud, everyone knew that. And even if she wasn’t, she had no reason to know -- and she had been doing this to her new students for years, if Minerva was to be believed. It had nothing to do with Sirius. How could it?

 

Remus knew he had to force himself to give his other classes as much focus as he was giving to Harry. The seventh years had voted against extra review sessions for the sixth-year material, because the NEWT exam was only cumulative of sixth- and seventh-year material, and the standard curriculum had review built in. Remus was glad for the larger class, because it meant more flexibility in pairing them up to work together, and lent more voices to theory discussion. He could tell that the students felt that they were on track to be prepared for the exam in May, and they were all performing well on the periodic diagnostic tests he was setting them for practice.

 

The fifth years had settled on twice-weekly evening review sessions of the fourth-year material, and at the first one Remus had presented them with an assessment he had written so that he could plan how much time to devote to various fourth-year concepts. He had decided to start them small, with the Disarming Charm, and to both his delight and theirs, all the students had mastered it by the end of that first review session. 

 

Those extra review sessions had been brought up at the September faculty meeting, and not by Remus himself. “I overheard the fifth years discussing it,” Filius Flitwick had squeaked from his seat a ways along the table from Remus, “and I must say it is quite above and beyond that which we expect. It’s excellent.”

 

Remus had flushed and looked down at the tabletop. 

 

He had been lucky in that the September full moon had fallen on a Saturday, so he had only to deal with the escalating soreness in the few days leading up to it, and had been able to take Sunday to recover from the exhaustion. The Wolfsbane potion was disgusting as ever, and Remus still hated the momentary interactions when Snape would hand him the flasks every day for a week, but it was worth it, so worth it, to give in to the transformation knowing that he wouldn’t hurt anyone coming out of it. For the first time since he was a child, he was able to face a full moon without the petrifying fear, because he was still a monster, but a monster caged, finally.

 

October had brought with it the start of the Quidditch season, and Remus had been amused but not surprised that Minerva seemed to have chosen her team captain in her image: Oliver Wood was fanatically determined, and he had none of Minerva’s political incentives to keep his fervor to himself. It turned out that Fred Weasley had been exaggerating when he had suggested that Oliver was going to start working his team on September second, but not by much. 

 

It had been Remus’s turn to patrol the second floor one night, and he had passed by a north-facing window just in time to see the Gryffindor Quidditch team wander its way back up towards the castle after practice. Harry was easily the smallest person on the team, and one of the Weasley twins -- from this distance Remus couldn’t tell which it was -- had thrown his arm around Harry’s shoulders to mess up his hair. 

 

_ James and the rest of his team stumped their way into the Great Hall after practice in a particularly brutal rainstorm. Scowling, James plopped himself into the seat beside Lily and wordlessly dished stew onto his plate. _

 

_ “Rough evening?” Sirius asked. _

 

_ “You going to join the team like I’ve been asking you since third year?” James snapped without looking up from his plate. _

 

_ Sirius raised his eyebrows. “What, and take orders? From you?” _

 

_ “Then shut up.” _

 

Remus stood still, out of sight, and watched the Gryffindor team as it was now making its way back into the castle. There were days where he barely thought of James and the others even once, and then there were moments like this one, where their ghosts crept up on him, so vivid that the last twelve years may as well have not happened.

 

He was exhausted as October neared its end, and felt his skin itching with the need to get out of the castle, even if only for a few hours. He glanced at the lesson plans strewn across the small table in his private quarters as he wrapped his cloak around his shoulders and tucked in his scarf; the fourth years were moving through the unit on Disillusionment Charms faster than he had anticipated, and he was going to have to give them the option of moving the test up a day so they’d have more time for their papers, or having a class devoted to exam review.

 

Sighing, he fastened his cloak and pushed his way out the door. As he descended the steps from his office to the classroom, he counted the days until the full moon off in his head. Eleven. A little over a week. He’d better write that exam soon, then, while he still had the energy for it. 

 

Remus had made it all the way to the entrance hall before he remembered them. Dementors, stationed at every entrance to the grounds. The air left his body in a rush. God, he didn’t think he had it in him to deal with the foul creatures, not now.

 

The idea slunk its way, unwelcome, into his mind, and before he could think about it too hard, he passed through the great wooden doors and turned right rather than continue straight along the drive. His hands balled into fists in his pockets.

 

Remus skirted the base of the north tower, the glass beneath his feet blue-black under the dim light of the new moon. He reminded himself that he wasn’t doing anything wrong, that there was nothing to prove that Sirius could use the path that Remus himself was using now. He was just going to get a drink, that was all. 

 

He heard the creaking and groaning of the Whomping Willow’s branches before he’d fully rounded the castle. When it came into view, Remus paused for a moment, just staring at it. The first time he’d seen the thing, he had been eleven and small for his age, and he had needed to fight the urge to hide behind Madam Pomfrey. 

 

Sighing, Remus drew his wand and wordlessly charmed a small twig lying in the grass to fly up. It dodged the swinging branches and prodded the knot in the roots. Moments later, the branches stilled. 

 

The back of Remus’s neck prickled, and instinctively he looked around. His eyes darted through the shadows clinging to the stone walls of the castle, and he stood still for a moment. But if anyone was watching him, they were doing it from a well-concealed place.

 

He shook the feeling off and strode towards the tree, the muscle memory surfacing just in time to help him slide his way into the tunnel. 

 

_ “This is… wicked creepy,” James muttered gleefully, slowly turning in a circle as they all advanced down the tunnel. “I love it.” _

 

The damp of the tunnel was colder than Remus remembered it, and the ceiling was lower, too, but he supposed it must have started to cave over the fifteen years since he had last travelled it. He walked faster, hands still fisted in his cloak pockets, speeding past the memories carved into the earthen walls. He was just going to get a drink. That was all. 

 

Finally, finally, he was pushing his way up through the trapdoor in the floor of the Shrieking Shack, and bracing his hands against the edges, and hoisting himself up. It was easier than he remembered it, but the wood was still damp and coarse against his palms. The first thing his eyes fell upon as he straightened up was the old armchair, toppled over with one leg missing, and he cleared his throat and hurried past it to the door. He didn’t want to linger and see the rest of the damage he’d done to the house.

 

The path that led from the Shrieking Shack to the High Street was steep and rocky as ever, and Remus winced as a pebble worked its way in through one of the holes in his shoes. He’d have to patch that up later, he reminded himself as he rounded Honeydukes and stepped into the light of a street lamp. There were still a few people out and about -- younger couples holding hands, children too young for Hogwarts but too old to be called home at sundown playing some sort of game with a ball and what looked like a large wooden hoop, a group of older gentlemen preceding Remus into the Three Broomsticks. 

 

The pub was warm and smoky when Remus caught the door as it swung shut, and the tea lights winked in their red glass jars on the tabletops. Only about half the tables were occupied, the patrons talking in low, cheerful voices as they ate and drank. Unnoticed, Remus slid past them all and lifted himself up onto a seat at the bar. Rosmerta was just filling a tankard; and she placed on an already crowded tray, which she slid to one of her barmen. She caught Remus’s eye and flashed him a quick smile, holding up a finger as she filled another order before she made her way over to him. “So.  _ Professor _ Lupin, is it?”

 

Remus smiled, sheepish. “Seems like it.” 

 

She braced her palms on the bar top and smirked at him. “You might have mentioned it,” she chided, and he shrugged. 

 

“Wasn’t definite yet.”

 

“Hmm.” She pushed away from the bar and turned to fill a pint glass. “I s’pose I’ll accept that,” she said, placing the glass down in front of him and waving off his proffered money. “But how is it going so far?”

 

He smiled again, hiding it in the rim of his glass. “Good, I think,” he replied. “Really good.”

 

“Had a crowd of them in here the last Hogwarts weekend talking about some extra review sessions you’re holding? To make up for the mess that Lockhart left you?” Rosmerta raised her eyebrows, impressed. “That’s quite something.”

 

“It’s not that impressive.” He shrugged. “It’s just for the students who are sitting the OWL this  year. It’s not mandatory -- they only show up if they want to be there.”

 

“And how many of them show up?” she asked, smirking again.

 

“Well… all of them, so far.” And it was true. All twenty of the fifth years had attended all fourteen of the sessions to date, even though Fred, George, Angelina, and the fourth Gryffindor Quidditch Player, Alicia, had twice rushed in late and mud-spattered, fresh from practice. They were all making the effort, and Remus wasn’t sure if he’d ever stop being surprised. 

 

Rosmerta beamed. “I knew you’d be cut out for this teaching job,” she said, gently flicking his wrist with the cloth she used to wipe down the tankards. “I wasn’t at all surprised when I heard.” She paused, and when Remus saw the smile slide from her face, he braced himself for what was coming. “Is anyone giving you a hard time about Sirius?”

 

Remus opened his mouth, prepared to repeat the statement that he didn’t want to talk about it, but the words wouldn't come. He realized, suddenly and painfully, that he  _ did  _ want to talk about it, that he did need to put it out into the air to make some sense of it. Something inside him loosened as he nodded, but could not yet speak.

 

Rosmerta watched him for a moment before she spoke again. “The Woodcrofts have owned the Three Broomsticks for generations, did you know?” Remus frowned and looked up at her, but she continued, “I met Robert Woodcroft while we were at school, and we married right out of it. I was happy to come here and work with him and his parents, and it was more flattering than anything else when they asked me to tend bar. I knew I was pretty.”

 

She sighed, and though Remus knew what was coming next, he did not speak. He had heard versions of this story: vague allusions by other Hogsmeade shopkeepers, whispers among the students. “When Death Eaters raided the village in July 1970, I wasn’t here. I was in Yorkshire, visiting my mother. But they were dead, all three of them. And I was the twenty-year-old widow who had somehow inherited the business.” She tapped her fingertips under his chin, forcing him to meet her eyes. “I know what it’s like to lose everything overnight, Remus.”

 

He exhaled roughly and took another gulp of his drink. “I know you do.”

 

“You can talk to me.”

 

“Yeah.” He glanced over her shoulder at the tarnished mirror behind the bar, just to ensure that there was no one near him, and then took a deep breath. Rosmerta watched him and waited.

  
  


Remus paused another moment while he planned what he wanted to say. “D’you remember that piece that the  _ Prophet _ ran about six weeks ago? About how that Muggle woman spotted him?” he asked her, and she nodded. “Well, the night it happened, Dumbledore called me and the four Heads of House into his office. Fudge was there, but so was Barty Crouch and Amelia Bones.”

 

“Why’d they want you?” Rosmerta asked, but something about the twist of her mouth told Remus that she already knew.

 

Remus sighed. “Because they think -- I don’t know -- that I’m helping him, or at least that I’ll be able to predict what he’ll do next.”

 

Rosmerta scowled and muttered, “That’s bullshit. And anyway, what do they need you for? It was all over the papers that he was talking in his sleep in Azkaban. What was it… ‘ _ He’s at Hogwarts _ ’?” 

 

“Yeah.” Remus traced a knot in the wood of the bartop with his finger. 

 

“D’you know, I still have trouble believing it,” Rosmerta mused. “Fifteen years ago, if someone had told me that Sirius Black was a Death Eater and had broken out of Azkaban to come after James Potter’s boy…” 

 

Remus was about to beg her to change the subject, but something in her words stirred an old train of thought.  _ Fifteen years ago _ … “That doesn’t make sense,” he said quietly, not realizing he’d spoken the words aloud until Rosmerta turned to face him again, surprised.

 

“What doesn’t?”

 

“It was just --” Remus started, then cut himself off, gathering his thoughts again. “He only started saying ‘ _ he’s at Hogwarts _ ’ this past summer.”

 

“So?”

 

“Harry’s thirteen.” When Rosmerta just looked at him blankly, Remus elaborated, “He’s been at Hogwarts for two years already.”

 

Rosmerta shrugged. “Keeping track of time in Azkaban probably can’t be the easiest thing in the world, Remus.”

 

Remus didn’t reply, but the last twelve years for him had been nothing but marking time and running from the attendant memories. Lily’s birthday, Peter’s birthday, James’s birthday, the June date of the Potter wedding, Harry’s birthday, September first, Halloween, November third as both the funeral and Sirius’s birthday… Remus was always acutely aware of the passage of time as it put larger and larger numbers between him and the rest of them. He found it hard to believe that Sirius, locked up in Azkaban with nothing to distract him and the dementors constantly bringing the ghosts to the fore, would not have known that Harry Potter was thirteen now and had first entered Hogwarts two years ago.

 

“Remus.”

 

He startled and realized that he’d been staring off into space over Rosmerta’s shoulder. She frowned at him. “Where did you go?”

 

“Just… trying to make sense of it, I suppose.” He shrugged as if he were brushing the thought off, but it was there. It was just a seed, and Rosmerta was probably right, but… still.

 

Rosmerta nodded sympathetically. “If I still can’t believe it, I can only imagine how hard it is for you. Even now.”

 

Again, the denial bubbled up, but Remus swallowed it. Why bother lying to her? She wasn’t Minerva, she wasn’t someone he saw every day. Wasn’t this why he had come here? To get out of the castle for a bit?

 

Remus nodded wordlessly. 

 

“Crouch said something…” he started again, slowly. “To Dumbledore. That night in his office.” Rosmerta raised her eyebrows. Remus continued. “Something about… relying on Dumbledore to be as committed to justice as he -- Dumbledore -- was twelve years ago.”

 

“Well.” Rosmerta leaned forward to place her elbows on the bartop. “That’s dramatic. What did Dumbledore say?”

 

Remus shrugged. “He nodded. And said ‘of course.’And then Crouch left.”

 

Rosmerta shrugged. “I’ll admit it’s odd, but it’s not too surprising, is it? Dumbledore is still head of the Wizengamot, and he and Crouch worked really closely together while Crouch was head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. You know this.”

 

_ “I’ll not have this turn into an arm of Crouch’s government, Dumbledore,” Moody growled, beady black eyes combing the table, examining each member of the Order in turn. “I’m here to end this war. I could give a shit about public opinion.” _

 

_ Dumbledore inclined his head. “Of course, Alastor, but you must recognize that this is not a vigilante group.” _

 

_ Sirius shifted in his seat beside Remus. “Then what’s the point? What are we here for?” he demanded. “If not to kill the bastards?” _

 

“Something like that,” Remus agreed with Rosmerta. “It’s just… it almost sounded like a threat.”

 

At that, Rosmerta laughed aloud. “Someone successfully threaten Albus Dumbledore? That’ll be the day.” She took Remus’s empty glass and reached back to refill it. “Now. Tell me all about your lessons. What’s it like being on the other end of things?”

 

Remus laughed with her and put Barty Crouch out of his mind. Rosmerta was probably right, anyway -- it was likely nothing. Crouch had always been a bit of a fanatic, and Dumbledore was probably just humoring him.

 

*** 

 

October thirty-first was staring Remus in the face.

 

The irony of it never escaped him -- he hadn’t even realized what had been happening that night, and he hadn’t found out until Dumbledore had called him and Andromeda Black into his office the next day to tell them that Lily and James and Peter were dead because of Sirius. And Remus remembered barely anything of the following days. But every year, October thirty-first loomed on the horizon, marking the time between before and after.

 

At least the thirty-first fell on a Sunday this year. Remus didn’t think he’d be able to face a classroom full of students that day. He could never be sure how he would react, really. But there was a full moon on November sixth, so the familiar, horrible ache was creeping back into his joints. And, he reminded himself, he would have to start taking Wolfsbane today.

 

When he woke up that morning, it was on the edge of something that could have been a nightmare. Breathing hard, he lay still for a moment, trying to chase it, to remember. Sirius had been cold with him for the last few months before it had happened -- at the time Remus had thought it was because Sirius suspected him of being a double agent, with all the time Remus spent spying on the werewolves. Remus thought he had seen Sirius’s glare as he slept. 

 

_ Enough _ . Remus shoved himself out of bed and scrubbed his hands across his face. Breakfast. If he ate something, he would feel better. 

 

The Great Hall was more crowded than it should have been, for a Sunday morning, and it was only as Remus scooped an egg onto his plate that he remembered that it was Halloween too -- a Hogsmeade weekend. The students would be queueing up in the entrance hall soon. He took a seat much further along the table than he was used to, knowing he wasn’t up to any sort of conversation. He was thankful when he was left alone.

 

Deciding that the best option would be to keep himself busy, Remus stood and rolled his shoulders, forcing his mind to his lesson plans. He slipped out the side door so as not to have to pass the length of the House tables. 

 

Remus had been back in his office for only about an hour, forcing himself to work but not getting anything done, when he sighed and shoved his chair back from his desk. A different approach was what he needed, surely. He should just… completely scrap the lesson plan he’d begun, and start over. Yes. That would work.

 

He hadn’t even noticed that he’d left the door to his classroom open, but as he kneeled before the lower shelf of one of his bookcases, he heard footsteps in the corridor. The castle was empty enough that this struck him as odd, and he straightened up and leaned out the door. 

 

Harry was wandering along the corridor, alone, eyes cast down so that his glasses slipped down his nose. God, he looked so much like James… 

 

Remus shook himself and called out to him. “Harry?”

 

The boy startled and looked up, eyes widening as he recognized Remus. Slowly, Harry approached Remus’s classroom, and Remus braced his hand on the door frame. “What are you doing? Where are Ron and Hermione?” Remus asked. He had never once seen Harry out of the company of at least one of his friends, except for that moment when Harry had been walking back from the Quidditch pitch, and would have expected them to be with him on the anniversary of his parents’ death.

 

“Hogsmeade,” Harry answered, jealousy flashing across his face before he managed to school his expression.

 

Remus forced himself to nod, even as his mind was racing. “Ah.”

 

Of course. He hadn’t realized it before, but of course the thirty-first wouldn't mean to Harry what it meant to Remus. After all, Harry had been only fifteen months old when James and Lily had died, and Remus supposed it was possible that Petunia Dursley never even told the boy the date of his parents’ death. 

 

Some small part of Remus’s brain registered surprise that Harry wasn’t in Hogsmeade too, and wondered if the permission had been revoked because of Sirius, or if Petunia Dursley had simply never signed the form.

 

But Remus didn’t like the idea of Harry being alone, today of all days. “Why don’t you come in?” he asked on an impulse. “I’ve just taken a delivery of a grindylow for our next lesson.” It was only a slight exaggeration -- the grindylow had been delivered three days previous.

 

“A what?” asked Harry, as he followed Remus through the classroom and up the stairs to the office. Remus gestured to the little horned creature in the tank on the corner table, and Harry startled back a bit when he laid eyes on it as it pulled faces. 

 

“Water demon,” Remus explained, studying the creature so as to avoid looking at Harry. This was the first time he had ever had a private conversation with Harry, and he could almost feel the ghosts the boy brought into the room with him. “We shouldn’t have much difficulty with him, not after the kappas. The trick is to break the grip. You notice the abnormally long fingers? Strong, but very brittle.”

 

Harry, interested but cautious, moved forward slowly, but he startled the grindylow enough that it hissed and took refuge in the tangle of weeds in the corner of the tank.

 

In an effort to stave off any awkwardness, Remus looked around for his kettle. “Cup of tea? I was just thinking of making one.”

 

Harry stared at him for a beat, then shrugged. “All right.”

 

When Remus drew his wand to tap the teapot, he noticed that his hands were shaking. James and Lily had been gone for twelve years now, and here was their son, the boy whose baby tongue had just mastered calling Remus “Moony” weeks before it had happened, twelve years older and looking uncomfortable in Remus’s office, with no idea who Remus was. 

 

Remus busied himself with the kettle and schooled his expression. 

 

“Sit down,” he told Harry as he found his tin of tea. “I’ve only got tea bags, I’m afraid -- but I daresay you’ve had enough of tea leaves?”

 

Harry glanced up, and Remus almost laughed at the surprise in his expression. “How’d you know about that?”

 

“Professor McGonagall told me,” Remus explained, passing Harry a teacup. The smile faded from his face when he saw that Harry didn’t seem amused. “You’re not worried, are you?”

 

“No,” Harry replied instantly, but Remus could tell the boy was mulling something over. Remus thought back to the stories that Minerva had told him -- Harry had faced death three times now, all before his thirteenth birthday. A stone settled into Remus’s gut at the thought that Harry would be well within his rights to take a death omen seriously.

 

“Anything worrying you, Harry?” he asked, gently. 

 

“No,” repeated Harry, and he made a point of staring at the grindylow tank. Remus made up his mind to wait Harry out as long as it took, but just a moment later, Harry changed his mind and decisively set his teacup down. “Yes. You know the day we fought the boggart?”

 

Remus raised his eyebrows. “Yes…”

 

Harry leaned forward slightly and demanded, “Why didn’t you let me fight it?”

 

Whatever Remus had been expecting, it wasn’t that. “I would have thought that was obvious, Harry?”

 

Harry looked at him in confusion, and for a brief moment Remus wondered how a child could look so surprised that someone had acted in his best interest. “Why?” Harry asked again. 

 

Remus set down his teacup. “Well… I assumed that if the boggart faced you, it would assume the shape of Lord Voldemort.”

 

He had spoken without thinking, but felt a rush of pride in his chest when Harry did not flinch at the name. But Harry’s look of confusion deepened, and Remus felt his brows knit together. “Clearly, I was wrong,” he observed, “but I didn’t think it a good idea for Lord Voldemort to materialize in the staffroom. I imagined people would panic.”

 

The terrifying memory of Harry convulsing in fear on the floor flashed through Remus’s mind.

 

But Harry was already shaking his head. “I didn’t think of Voldemort,” he stammered, “I remembered those dementors.”

 

Remus exhaled, considering this child in front of him, the boy who had seen too much, and lived to tell of it. “I see. Well, well.” He felt a smile begin to creep across his face. “I’m impressed. That suggests what you fear most of all is fear. Very wise, Harry.”

 

The boy clearly didn’t know what to say to that, and Remus’s smile widened as Harry hid behind his teacup rather than acknowledge the compliment. But there was still a shade of James’s bruised pride in the boy’s face. “So you’ve been thinking that I didn’t believe you capable of fighting the boggart?” Remus asked him, and he was rewarded by seeing Harry grin and set down his cup.

 

“Well… yeah.” Harry shrugged, sheepish now. “Professor Lupin, you know how the dementors--”

 

But before the boy could finish his thought, there was a knock at the door, and Remus silently cursed whomever was interrupting them. He had just gotten the boy to open up… 

 

“Come in,” he called, and Snape eased his way through the door, clutching a goblet of what had to be Wolfsbane. The permanent scowl on his face deepened even further when his eyes fell on Harry.

 

“Ah, Severus.” Remus summoned a smile before Snape could say anything. “Thanks very much. Could you leave it here on the desk for me?”

 

Snape did so, but did not immediately turn to leave. He stood there, studying Harry, who did not drop his gaze. 

 

Remus filled the silence. “I was just showing Harry my grindylow.”

 

“Fascinating.” Snape did not shift his glare from Harry’s face. “You should drink that directly, Lupin.”

 

“Yes, yes,” said Remus, fighting to keep the impatience from his voice. “I will.”

 

Still Snape lingered. “I made an entire cauldronful, if you need more.”

 

They both knew very well that Remus was to take one dose a day for a week, but Remus chose to humor him in the hopes that he would just  _ leave _ . “I should probably take some again tomorrow. Thanks very much, Severus.”

 

“Not at all,” Snape sneered, and with that, he finally left. 

 

Remus saw Harry’s gaze slide to the goblet. The hatred between Snape and the boy still lingered in the air, and suddenly it was stifling. 

 

Hoping to drive it out, Remus tried to fill the silence. “Professor Snape has very kindly concocted a potion for me. I have never been much of a potion-brewer and this one is particularly complex. Pity sugar makes it useless.” He could feel himself rambling, and he hated it, but he didn’t know what else to do. He took a gulp to quiet himself, and viciously held down the physical reaction to the poison he had just introduced to his body.

 

_ “This’ll liven you up, Padfoot,” said James quietly. “Look who it is…” _

 

_ Immediately, Sirius’s head snapped up. “Excellent,” he breathed. “Snivellus _ .”

 

Harry was frowning again, looking as if he wanted to hex the goblet out of Remus’s hands, simply because it had been Snape who set it down. “Why--”

 

Remus cut him off. “I’ve been feeling a bit off-color. This potion is the only thing that helps.” It was close enough to the truth that he felt no guilt, none of the usual shame that came with lying about what he was. “I am very lucky to be working alongside Professor Snape; there aren’t many wizards who are up to making it.” 

 

Even as he said the words they tasted off in his mouth, and he wondered who exactly he was trying to convince. 

 

But Harry sat there with his father’s face, anxiety writ all over his features, and Remus was nauseous at the thought that it had come to this, that Snape hated Harry for being his father’s son, that Harry had inherited James’s loathing because of it. 

 

It didn’t matter, this one time, that James was dead.

 

Remus swallowed another mouthful, and Harry blurted, “Professor Snape’s very interested in the Dark Arts.”

 

“Really?” Remus felt his hands shake as he tried to focus on Harry’s words without losing himself in despair at the sentiment that drew them. He swallowed another mouthful, and the fire spread to the joints in his hands and feet. 

 

Harry was warring with himself, Remus could see, and then the boy spoke so quickly the words almost tripped over each other. “Some people reckon -- some people reckon he’d do anything to get the Defense Against the Dark Arts job.”

 

Remus drained the goblet to hide the horror on his face, and he shuddered as the last of the molten fire slid its way through his body. He was about to vomit, he knew it. 

 

“Disgusting,” he muttered, before controlling his face and looking back up at the boy. “Well, Harry, I’d better get back to work. I’ll see you at the feast later.”

 

If Harry was surprised at the abrupt dismissal, he didn’t show it, and Remus was grateful. The bile was clawing its way up his throat, and he barely managed to nod when Harry muttered “Right” and placed his teacup down with a nod of thanks. 

 

Harry closed the door behind him, and Remus bolted to the bathroom, falling to his knees before the toilet. But he forced himself to breathe deeply, willing his stomach to settle, because if he voided the Wolfsbane he’d have to go back to Snape for another dose. 

 

The harsh sounds of his own breathing were loud in his ears, but eventually he settled, and was able to relax enough to collapse against the wall and tip his head back. He closed his eyes and willed his heart rate to calm.

 

***

 

Remus had decided not to go down to the Halloween feast; he just couldn’t face it. Instead, he waited until the feast had already begun, then slipped out of his corridors and walked down to the kitchens to ask the house-elves to build a plate for him. He wasn’t hungry, not really, but knew better than to skip meals the week before the full moon. 

 

He barely knew what he ate, and her certainly didn’t taste it. He had just pushed the plate aside on his desk and dropped his head into his hands as if he could force himself to concentrate on  his lesson plans that way when a gleaming silver cat leapt through his window. His back stiffened as the Patronus stepped across his desk, and he felt himself clutching his wand inside his robes. The cat’s mouth opened, and Minerva McGonagall’s voice spoke.

 

_ “Come to the staffroom immediately.” _

 

He stared at the Patronus, expecting more, but it faded away as quickly as it had come. Remus’s heart began to pound. He drew his wand and stood, rushing out the door. 

 

He didn’t see any of the students in the corridors, but he could hear them -- on the floor below, on the marble staircase, their feet pounding together as they all moved in what sounded like the direction of the Great Hall. Remus sped up.

 

The staffroom was nearly full when he reached it, nervous chatter hovering on the air. Minerva caught his eye from across the room and beckoned him to her side. He moved to join her just as Dumbledore entered, closely followed by Amelia Bones and Rufus Scrimgeour.

 

And Remus knew.

 

Sirius had gotten in.

 

Without any preamble, Scrimgeour lifted his grizzled head and began to speak. “At some point during the Halloween feast, Sirius Black attempted to gain entry to Gryffindor Tower.”

 

Remus went rigid.  _ Harry. _

 

No one noticed Remus’s reaction. Scrimgeour, deadpan, went on. “No students were harmed, and the whole student body has been relocated to the Great Hall. My Aurors are conducting a search of the grounds, and we need you all to partner with one other teacher and search the castle. Thank you.”

 

Without another word, Scrimgeour swept from the room, brushing Aurora Sinistra aside in his wake. Immediately, the buzz of alarmed confusion swept the room, and beside Remus, Minerva spun on Albus. “ _ What _ happened?”

 

Dumbledore drew himself up to his full height, and his blue eyes burned ice cold. “I am afraid we have no time to provide you all with a fuller explanation. We must all immediately do as the Auror head suggested. Please partner with a colleague and begin to conduct a search.”

 

Remus was still frozen in place when he felt Minerva’s hand wrap around his elbow. “You’re with me,” she hissed. “I don’t want anyone asking you anything, the way your face looks right now.”

 

They were the first two out of the room, and had made it down the corridor and up a flight of stairs before Remus managed to speak. “What did you mean by that?” His voice was hoarse.

 

She looked sideways at him. “Simply that you wouldn't be able to answer something coherently. Harry is fine, Remus.”

 

Remus let out a breath and drew his wand. “Right.”

 

He shadowed Minerva through the halls, hearing her murmur “ _ Homenum revelio _ .”

 

_ “You know,” Sirius said, popping a handful of blueberries in his mouth, “we could easily write a map. And. You know. Enchant it to show where everyone in the castle is.” _

 

_ Remus raised his eyebrows. “That sounds… Impossible.” _

 

_ “Ah, come on.” Sirius scoffed. “You don’t know that.” _

 

Remus braced himself and followed Minerva. He'd been stupid, so  _ stupid _ , to consider that something had been wrong about Sirius’s arrest. Sirius had killed James and Lily, and he had killed Peter, and he had killed those twelve Muggles, and now he had broken into Hogwarts on the anniversary of James and Lily’s deaths to try and kill Harry. 

 

And that was all there was to it. He had to be stopped. Remus had to stop him.


	9. Grim Defeat

Remus glanced over his shoulder down the murky dark of the second-floor corridor, then tapped his wand on the doorknob before him. The lock clicked open, and with another glance about, Remus slipped into Argus Filch’s office and snapped the door shut behind him. He only had a moment -- he had told Minerva that they were just splitting up briefly to cast another quick look around before they went back to the Great Hall. 

 

He waited until the lock clicked before he muttered “ _ Lumos _ ” and allowed the room to fill with pale light. Filch’s office looked exactly the same as ever, and Remus half-expected to see James and his poorly-concealed smile draped over one of the chairs before the desk.

 

Remus strode across the room to the filing cabinet, eyes scanning across the labels for the letter ‘M.’ “ _ Map _ ,” he muttered to himself, tugging the door open and rifling through it with his free hand. “ _ Map, map… _ ”

 

But it wasn’t there. An icy block of fear settled into his gut.

 

The rough sounds of his breath were loud in the stillness of the office, and he squeezed his eyes shut, forcing himself to remember who had been the last of them in possession of the map when it had finally been confiscated.

 

_ “Confiscated?” James was incredulous, even as they all reflexively ducked at the sound of an explosion somewhere along the massive stone walls that ringed the ground. “Wormtail, how could you let it get confiscated?” _

 

_ Peter opened his mouth to speak, but Sirius brushed past him, shaking his black hair out of his eyes. “Worry about it later, Prongs. They’ll breach the wall soon if we don’t move.” _

 

Remus dragged his eyes open, took a deep breath, and shifted three drawers over.  _ “Pettigrew _ ,” he mumbled, fingers dancing across the files until he found the one with Peter’s name on it. Quickly, his own breath  harsh in the dark office, he tugged the file out and let it fall open, balancing his lit wand atop the filing cabinet. 

 

Seven years’ worth of disciplinary write-ups and photographs of confiscated documents spread out before Remus, their frequency peaking in Peter’s fifth year and then dramatically falling off in their sixth and seventh, as the war escalated and they all began to prepare for what was next. Swallowing down the bile in his throat, Remus rifled through the documentation, searching desperately for the folded-up tattered piece of parchment.

 

He didn’t find it. Shoving the panic aside, he looked again. It wasn’t there. 

 

Remus’s blood ran cold. Automatically, his hands moved to search Peter’s file yet again, but he knew it was useless. The map was gone. It was gone, and the only other living person with reason to know where to take it from was Sirius Black. 

 

Sirius had beaten Remus to it, and now he had an infallible tool that would tell him where Harry was at any moment.

 

Remus’s knuckles went white as he gripped the edge of the filing cabinet drawer. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, shutting his eyes again. “James, I’m sorry.”

 

An indistinct noise behind him brought him back to himself, and he startled. Minerva would be looking for him. Trying not to take another look, he shoved Peter’s file back together and jammed it back into the drawer, before slamming it shut and rushing out of the office, leaving it apparently untouched.

 

He reunited with Minerva in a patch of moonlight in the Transfiguration corridor, and he avoided her searching eyes as he muttered, “All clear.”

 

After a beat, she nodded too. “I came up empty as well. Come. Let’s check in on Percy and Annabelle, and then I imagine there will be some sort of gathering in the staffroom.”

 

Together, they moved silently to one of the doorways to the courtyard. Remus’s thoughts were swirling faster than he could keep up with them, even as their footfalls crunched on the frosted grass. Something still wasn’t adding up.

 

Sirius had broken into Hogwarts, and he had done it on the anniversary of James and Lily’s deaths. He had attempted to gain entry to Gryffindor Tower, where Harry slept, and had lost his temper when the Fat Lady had denied him. Remus was certain that Sirius had the Marauders’ Map, because who else would? 

 

But… if Sirius had had the Marauders’ Map, or if he’d paid any attention to the atmosphere of the castle, he would know that there was a feast in the Great Hall, and that Harry would be there, not in Gryffindor Tower --

 

He shook himself. Sirius Black was many things, but he wasn’t stupid, and storming into the middle of the Great Hall when it was full of feasting students would be monumentally stupid. His plan had probably been to lie in wait for Harry in the dormitories.

 

Ignoring the voice in the back of his head that whispered at him that Sirius would have to kill not only Harry but also at the very least every single boy in Gryffindor Tower in order to escape undetected, Remus followed Minerva into the entrance hall. It was an eerie sight: hundreds of identical, lumpy sleeping bags spread out all along the floor. In the utter stillness, Remus had to remind himself that the students were merely sleeping.

 

Annabelle Rothschild, the Head Girl, quickly and quietly made her way to Remus and Minerva as soon as she saw them. “Professors,” she whispered, eyes gleaming in the moonlight that filtered in from the enchanted ceiling. “It’s all quiet in here. No sign of him?”

 

“None, Miss Rothschild,” Minerva replied, square-framed spectacles glinting as she too surveyed the students spread out on the floor. “We are on our way to the staff room. Are you and Mr. Weasley all right here?”

 

Annabelle nodded. “We’re fine. The ghosts have been moving through, keeping us company. The seventh year prefects are staying awake too.”

 

Minerva gave the girl a small smile and reached out to gently pat her shoulder, then turned back to Remus and motioned him towards the door. He followed her, but first his glance found three sleeping bags grouped together in a corner. James’s shock of black hair poked out from one of them.

 

Harry was safe, Remus reminded himself as he left the Hall with Minerva. He was safe.

 

The staff room, lit softly by the light of a half dozen lanterns, was only about half full when they entered and took seats. Dumbledore was in his customary seat at the head, and Snape was standing and staring out of one of the lead-paned windows. Flitwick looked up from his whispered conversation with Sinistra to nod at Remus and Minerva. Glancing about, Remus estimated that they were only waiting on Sprout, Burbage, Hooch, and Vector. And Trelawney and Binns, if either of them were coming.

 

Hagrid clapped Remus on the shoulder on his way to his reinforced seat at the end of the table, and Remus’s head was knocked towards the table. “Yeh alrigh’, Remus?”

 

Before Remus could answer, Minerva shot Hagrid a warning look. Remus watched Hagrid’s eyes widen behind his beard before he nodded at Remus and moved off to his seat. Remus appreciated Minerva getting him out of the conversation, but he was now acutely aware of Alexander Derwent and Severus Snape staring at him.

 

As soon as the rest of the faculty had filed in and taken their seats, Dumbledore opened the meeting without preamble. “I understand that it is late, and that we are all tired,” he began, “but I need all of you to be aware of what happened tonight. Sirius Black gained entry to the castle and demanded that the Fat Lady grant him entry to Gryffindor Tower. When she refused, he attacked her and fled. You have all just finished a comprehensive search of the castle, and the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement just had her Aurors search the grounds. Both searches yielded no results.”

 

“So we don’t know how he got in?” Derwent interrupted. 

 

Dumbledore cut his eyes to him and said, “We do not. Security is to be tightened -- we will be increasing the number of nightly staff patrols, and an Auror will be stationed in the castle every night. It will have to be on a rotating basis, as they are still understaffed. But the dementors are still not to enter the castle grounds.” Dumbledore sighed. “I would recommend that you all go and sleep now. Minerva, I would appreciate if you joined me for breakfast with the Minister and Madam Bones in the morning.”

 

Minerva nodded, and Dumbledore went on, “Unless anyone has anything else to add --”

 

“I do.” Snape had never taken a seat at the table, and he folded his arms as he surveyed them all. “I have raised this with you privately, Headmaster, but I think it bears repeating. There are… certain members of this faculty who would have more reason than others to know how Black is getting in.”

 

Remus refused to drop his gaze. Dumbledore made to speak, but Snape continued before he could.

 

“Lupin was hired so that he could anticipate Black’s moves. So far he has proven utterly useless in this regard, and my only conclusion is that --”

 

“Enough,” Dumbledore cut across Snape before turning to fully face Remus. “Remus, do you know how Sirius Black got into the castle?”

 

Remus met his eyes head-on. “No, sir.”

 

Technically it wasn’t a lie.

 

Dumbledore nodded once and turned back to Snape. “That should be enough for us all, Severus. Unless the fact that I choose to place my trust in people is no longer a valid reason in and of itself?”

 

Snape shifted but said nothing further.

 

Silence followed for a few moments, then Pomona Sprout spoke, her voice low in the dim light. “Potter should be told.”

 

Minerva looked up and met Pomona’s eyes, and Pomona spoke only to her, as if she had forgotten that the rest of them were present. “Black made it into the castle, Minerva. The boy is in danger, for all our best efforts. He has a right to know.”

 

Minerva sighed and opened her  mouth to answer, but Dumbledore intervened. “I don’t see how that’s necessary --”

 

“It  _ is _ necessary,” Minerva cut him off without looking at him. “We have, after all, done enough of this nonsense where we don’t inform the boy when his life is in danger. I’ll tell him tomorrow, Pomona. Thank you for bringing it up.”

 

Not for the first time, Remus tried and failed to imagine what James would say to all of this.

 

***

Life went back to normal over the next few days, more or less. Classes resumed uninterrupted, though with a nervous, somber feel to them. This faded within a few days, however, as no new immediate threat from Sirius was forthcoming. Minerva reported to Remus over tea that she had called Harry into her office to tell him about Sirius, but he had already known. Apparently Arthur Weasley had told him before the students boarded the train on September first. Remus raised his eyebrows at the news; the boy certainly hadn’t been acting as if he were in fear for his life in the two months they’d been in school.

 

“He’s his father’s son,” Minerva had said, with a concentrated effort at anger, but failing to repress a smile. “I told him that he shouldn’t train with the Quidditch team, it was too exposed, and do you know what he said to me?”

 

“That Gryffindor opens the season with a match against Hufflepuff on Saturday?” Remus hadn’t looked up from his teacup.

 

“ _ Exactly!” _ Minerva had thrown her hands up in the air. “Not an ounce of self-preservation in the face of Quidditch. Unbelievable.”

 

Remus hadn’t said it aloud, but he found it all too believable that this was what Harry had learned from a world that kept letting him risk his life to protect others, and did nothing to stop him, even though he was still a child.

 

***

 

The November full moon fell on a Thursday, so Remus was unable to face teaching class on Friday. He stayed in bed, propped up against the pillows, watching a storm that bordered on a hurricane lash the castle windows. He had been informed by Dumbledore that, this month, Snape would be covering his classes. Informed, not asked. Snape hadn’t mentioned it at all while dropping off the doses of Wolfsbane, but Remus had thought he had seen Snape smirking once or twice towards the end of the week. He had thought, assuming the worst as he did, that Snape had tampered with the potion.

 

He honestly wasn't sure if this was worse. He felt… violated, somehow, at the idea that the lesson plans he had so carefully crafted were to be taken over by a former Death Eater, reformed or not, and one who abused his students and took pleasure in doing so. Neville would have to endure an additional hour with his biggest fear this week, and all because Remus was a monster.

 

Remus sighed. Fridays were the Gryffindor third years, Slytherin first years, and a double period of Gryffindor and Ravenclaw second years. All had prescribed lesson plans. There wasn’t too much damage that Snape could do. And thank God, the review sessions with the fifth years weren’t on Friday afternoons.

 

Between the frailness that lingered in Remus’s bones and the force of the storm still raging outside the castle, Remus couldn’t bring himself to attend the Quidditch match on Saturday. He wanted to, though -- there was a powerful tug on his heart to see if Harry was as good a flier as James had been. He knew Harry was a Seeker where James had been a Chaser, but they all had known James could have been a Seeker if he’d wanted, if he hadn’t been so damn committed to playing a position that he saw as getting more glory during the game itself. James had stolen that Snitch often enough… 

 

_ “Put that away. Before Wormtail wets himself from excitement.” _

 

Remus napped fitfully for most of Saturday morning, restless enough to keep waking himself but too tired to actually get out of bed. His joints protested every time he tried to lie on his side. As he dozed, James and Lily flitted in and out of his dreams, never speaking, but James’s face was blank and Lily had an accusatory look in her eyes. He kept trying to apologize to her, to both of them, that he hadn’t been able to tell that Sirius would do this to all of them, and he wasn’t able to protect Harry now….

 

And then there was Sirius himself, laughing as he had laughed after his first full moon as Padfoot, as he had laughed at James and Lily’s wedding, as he had laughed after killing Peter. He was glancing over his shoulder at Remus, out of reach but close enough to wound. When Remus tried to chase him, his joints screamed in protest.

 

He was roused by the sound of someone pounding on the door of his office, the sound muffled as it traveled through to his private quarters. “Remus?” he thought he heard Minerva call. “Are you decent? Something’s happened.”

 

_ Harry _ .

 

Remus immediately sat up and cast his covers aside, ignoring the fire that lanced through his joints. “Just a moment,” he called back, scrambling around for a pair of trousers and the shirt he had worn to teach last Wednesday. He scrubbed a hand over his hair before yanking open the door to his quarters and stumbling into his office, barely straightening himself before he opened the office door.

 

Minerva was standing there, tense-faced and rain-soaked, and as she brushed past him into his office, she tugged off her pointed hat, showering the floor with displaced raindrops. “What’s happened?” he demanded, watching her turn to face him.

 

“He’s fine,” she made to hastily reassure him, holding up her free hand. “Harry. He’s all right, Remus. I promise you.”

 

Remus’s jaw tightened. “What happened?” he repeated.

 

Minerva sighed. “Dementors. They entered the Quidditch pitch.”

 

Remus went cold. “How many?”

 

“All of them. Every one that had been stationed at the entrances to the grounds.”

 

“My God.” Remus’s hands balled into fists. “And?” Minerva hesitated, and Remus took a step towards her. “Minerva. Please.”

 

“Harry fell from his broom,” she said, and Remus’s breath caught in his throat. “Dumbledore cast an  _ arresto momentum _ , and Harry was moved to the hospital wing without incident, though his broomstick drifted away and was smashed to bits by the Whomping Willow. His team and his friends are with him now. The dementors were removed from the grounds, and I believe Dumbledore is speaking to the Minister and to Madam Bones now.”

 

Remus’s throat was tight, but he remembered himself. “Was Harry the only… were the others…”

 

“No one else was as badly affected,” Minerva assured him quietly. “Which isn’t surprising… considering.”

 

Remus dropped into one of the chairs in front of his desk and dragged a hand over his face. “The Whomping Willow?”

 

“You can’t tell me you’re finding a way to make this your fault?” Minerva asked, incredulous. “Remus, don’t be ridiculous.”

 

“I know.” His reply was automatic, controlled. 

 

“And Harry will be fine. God knows, Poppy has healed him of far worse.”

 

“I know.” But Remus was no longer listening. He could imagine what Harry had heard as he had fallen, and had to viciously suppress a fleeting moment of envy. To hear James and Lily, one more time… 

 

He shook himself. “Will Harry be back in classes on Monday?”

 

Minerva shrugged. “It will depend on what Poppy says. Harry himself will want to return to normal as quickly as possible, if past patterns hold.”

 

“Right,” said Remus vaguely, again wondering if no one else was concerned at the fact that Harry had been hospitalized enough for a pattern to even form. A thought occurred to him. “Do we know why the dementors entered the grounds in the first place?”

 

Minerva’s mouth twisted up. “I can only imagine it was the easy access to so many high emotions in one place,” she sniffed. 

 

“So… there’s no indication that they had spotted Sirius near the pitch --”

 

“None whatsoever,” Minerva said firmly. “Remus, I would tell you if that were the case. We have no reason whatsoever to believe that it is.” After a pause, in which she was clearly waiting for Remus to reply and he did not, she sighed. “I should be in the meeting in Dumbledore’s office. Are you well? Can I have the house elves bring you anything?”

 

“I’m fine,” he said, forcing a smile. “You should go.”

 

But still Minerva hesitated, studying him, and he stood. “Minerva, I’m fine. I’ve been handling this for years now. And without the help of the Wolfsbane. I’m all right.”

 

“Well….” Minerva searched his face. “If you’re sure.”

 

“I am,” he promised, then repeated, “I’m all right.”

 

She sighed. “Very well, then. Shall I see you at dinner tonight?”

 

“Maybe,” he nodded. “I’ll try to make it.”

 

She smiled at him once more, gently touching his forearm, before she showed herself out, softly shutting the door behind her. Remus stared at the dark wood for a moment, considering. He did believe that Harry was in good hands with Madam Pomfrey -- she had patched Remus up often enough that he could be sure of that, no matter what he felt about the woman personally.

 

No, what was causing the fear to uncurl in his gut was the idea of the dementors. He didn’t believe Minerva when she said that there was no chance they had sensed Sirius in the grounds. And if Remus himself had been wondering if Harry was as good a flier as his father, then surely James’s best friend in the world would have the same question?

 

And if Remus was right about that, if Sirius had come to the match to see Harry fly but not to kill him, why would Sirius care? Just like attempting to get into Gryffindor Tower on Halloween -- to do that, to sneak in and lie in wait and kill Harry, Sirius would be setting himself up to enact huge amounts of collateral damage, for an incredibly low likelihood of escape. Shooting a curse at Harry from a seat in the stands of the Quidditch pitch would be suicide, considering not only the faculty but also the dementors. Sirius would know that. 

 

So why come, then? Why show up? Just to watch the game?

 

Remus wandered over to the window, and stared through the glass unseeingly while shoving his hands into his pockets. Twice now, Sirius had taken enormous risks with very little chance of meaningful payoff. While the first part sounded like Sirius, the second part didn’t. Remus knew he had absolutely no proof that Sirius had been at the game, and yet… 

 

If Remus was right, then one of two things were true. The first option was that Azkaban had truly turned Sirius’s head, and he was nowhere near the strategic thinker he had once been. The second option was that he didn’t want Harry dead, and  _ “He’s at Hogwarts _ ” had been about someone else entirely.

 

Remus leaned forward until his forehead met the cool glass of the window. He thought he could feel the impact of hundreds of tiny raindrops through the pane. Harry had been so affected by the dementors that he had fallen from his broom, almost to his death. Sirius might have broken out of Azkaban for a purpose other than killing Harry, maybe for reasons that had nothing to do with Harry.

 

Remus didn’t know what to think. He closed his eyes and listened to the rain wash against the castle, and asked himself again where it had all gone so wrong.


	10. Secrets and Memories

When Remus walked into the first review session for the fourth-year materials with his OWL students, he almost turned around and walked right back out.

 

Usually, before he called the sessions to order, the students were laughing and joking with each other, or commiserating loudly over homework from another class, or arguing about professional Quidditch standings. In any case, there was always a wave of conversation spilling out into the hallway, and Remus was pulled into at least one good-natured debate on his way to the front of the room to call the group to order.

 

Tonight, though, the silent tension in the room was suffocating. The usual habit of the students, if only in these review sessions, was to disregard Houses entirely and sit where they wanted. But now the Gryffindors, with the four Quidditch players in the center of the group, were huddled into a back corner, glowering at everyone else. In the front row, opposite corner, the Hufflepuffs were clustered with Cedric Diggory at their heart, his spine stiff and his eyes fixed on the blackboard. Meanwhile, the Ravenclaws and Slytherins kept sneaking nervous glances at each other. 

 

Everyone but Cedric startled at the sound when Remus shut the door behind himself. Remus was acutely aware of the sound of his own footsteps as he walked to the front of the room, and of the clatter his case made when he set it down on the desk. He surveyed them all for a moment, but nobody moved. 

 

“All right,” he finally said. “What’s happened?”

 

He continued to look over them all, but no one answered him. Remus sighed, the sound loud in the silence, and turned to the Gryffindors. “Angelina,” he started, and she grudgingly met his eyes. “Professor McGonagall told me that Harry is recovering nicely from his fall. In fact, she says that there was very little to recover from.” He paused. Angelina said nothing, and beside her, George shifted in his seat. “You’ve been to visit him. Would you say that’s accurate?”

 

Angelina opened her mouth, closed it, then grumbled, “Yes, sir.”

 

Remus nodded. “I’m glad to hear it. Now, I wasn’t at the game, but -- and correct me if I’m wrong -- I believe that the reason Harry fell had everything to do with the dementors on the field, and nothing whatsoever to do with any sort of foul play from your opposing team. Would you say that  _ that’s _ accurate as well?”

 

“Yes, sir,” Angelina murmured, even as Fred shot her an annoyed glance. 

 

“In fact,” Remus went on, catching Fred’s eye and holding his gaze for a moment before moving on, “I understand that Cedric tried to call a rematch on a game he’d won fair and square, which he certainly was under no obligation to do. And I understand that your captain, Oliver Wood, knew it too, and declined. How about that, Angelina? Accurate?”

 

Angelina sighed. “Yes, sir.”

 

“Good. I’m glad we’re all on the same page.” Remus moved around the desk to perch on its edge, facing the class. Cedric had still not looked away from the chalk board. Remus steeled himself -- he had never had to discipline any of his students before, and his heart was pounding in his chest. “I want you all to listen to me very carefully. These sessions are completely voluntary. There is absolutely nothing I can do to compel your presence. In fact, I’m coming down from an illness, and would much rather be in bed right now. But I’m here because you all voted that you wanted to review before the exam in May. If any of you don’t want to be here, I strongly suggest you leave.” Again, his eyes sought out Fred and George, both of whom were now gazing down at their desks.

 

Remus continued, “But there is another side to that. Because these lessons are not mandated by the school, I hold no obligation to keep any of you here. If anyone in this room makes anyone else feel unsafe, or unwelcome, or otherwise contributes to an environment that makes it difficult for other students to learn, I will tell you to leave, and  _ that _ will not be a suggestion. Are we all clear on that point?”

 

A general murmur of assent rippled through the room. Remus stood up straight, studying Fred, George, Angelina, and Alicia again. “And I have to say I’m disappointed in you four,” he added, and Alicia seemed to shrink into herself. “You know better. I know that you know better.”

 

Finally, Cedric moved. “It’s not their fault, sir,” he said, turning his head to face Remus, but not meeting his eyes. “They’re worried for their teammate. I can’t say I blame them.”

 

Remus studied Cedric for a long moment, then nodded before he looked back up at the class at large. “Now. Are we all capable of holding a productive review session this evening?” He waited for a few token heads to nod, Alicia and Angelina’s among them. “Good. Then let’s begin.” He reached into his case and pulled out the file he was keeping on these review sessions. He felt his hands shake, and forced them to steady. “The last time we met, we had just finished covering the Rebound Charm. Lee, would you be so kind as to remind us what this charm does?”

 

Lee Jordan straightened up in his seat. “Er. Yeah. If you get it off early enough, it sends your opponent’s curse right back at him.”

 

“Good.” Remus nodded. “Mediha, what are some of the shortcomings of the charm?”

 

A Ravenclaw girl near the middle of the room shuffled her notes around. “It has limited effectiveness,” she responded. “It’s only really any good against minor to moderate hexes and jinxes, and a few curses.”

 

“Well done. The Rebound Charm is a poor substitute for what, Astoria?”

 

“The Shield Charm,” the Slytherin girl responded promptly.

 

“Excellent,” Remus praised her, then paused. What he had planned for this session was a few rounds of practice duels, but with the barely-diffused tension in the room, he didn’t think that would be the best idea he’d ever had. “Go ahead and pull out  _ The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection _ and answer the questions at the end of chapter seven. You may work together so long as you do it quietly.”

 

Remus waited until they had all settled in, quills scratching against parchment and book pages ruffling, before he moved back behind the teacher’s desk and took his seat. 

 

Not for the first time in his life, he wondered if Hogwarts would be better off without a Quidditch league. He wasn’t sure if it had ever solved more problems than it had caused.

 

_ “Bloody cold,” Sirius huffed beside Remus in the stands, dragging his scarf higher up his face to ward off the chill. A solid foot of snow had fallen over the grounds last night, and was lying in a thick blanket over the smooth grass of the pitch, but that hadn’t deterred anyone from going forward with the second game of the season. Slytherin, fresh off a win against Ravenclaw, was up against Gryffindor.  _

 

_ Lily reached across Remus to hand Sirius a thermos of coffee, and he took a grateful sip before passing it back to Remus, who gulped some down too. “Can’t believe the school hasn’t cancelled Quidditch yet,” Lily murmured, accepting the thermos back. She glanced at Remus, but neither of them were willing to say what they were thinking -- that this was Regulus’s first match against Gryffindor since he had been called up from the reserves, since the Black family had disowned Sirius. And it would be the first time that James and Regulus would be sharing the field. Remus and Lily, and the rest of the prefects, were breaking up more corridor duels than they ever had before. They privately agreed that it was foolish to provide families on either side of the -- what was this? Conflict was too small a word, but Remus shied away from calling it a war, because that made it real -- an additional forum in which to try to kill each other. _

 

_ On Lily’s other side, Peter lifted a pair of binoculars to his face as the bell signalling a goal scored rang through the stadium. “And Kateryn Finnigan of Gryffindor beats Flint, the Slytherin Keeper, breaking the tie! Thirty-twenty to Gryffindor!” Jamie King, the commentator, was a Ravenclaw and still clearly smarting from the humiliation that Slytherin had dealt her House in the match two weekends ago. _

 

_ Remus raised his hands to applaud along with the rest of the Gryffindors, but the sound was muffled by his gloves. Lily cupped her fingers around her mouth to let out a whoop, and out of the corner of his eye, Remus watched how closely she was tracking James’s movements up and down the pitch. This new space they were all in -- where James was trying to grow up, and Lily was trying to relax, and the rest of them were trying to act as if it were normal for the two of them to so earnestly try to be friends -- still felt strange and uncomfortable. But worth it, Remus thought to himself, smiling. Definitely worth it. _

 

_ Suddenly there was a shouted expletive from the pitch, near the Slytherin goal posts. Remus whipped his head around, but he missed what had caused Parkinson, one of the Slytherin Chasers, to cry out. What he did not miss was Rosier swinging his beater’s bat around in a vicious arc, cracking it into a passing bludger and sending it barreling towards James. With what looked like a muttered curse, James ducked it, and the iron ball sped past him and clipped the tail of Regulus’s broom. With a speed that would have impressed Remus in any other set of circumstances, Regulus drew his wand and pointed it at James, cold fury in his face.  _

 

_ “OI!” shouted Sirius, jerking to his feet. Remus’s hand shot out and wrapped around Sirius’s wrist, fighting Sirius so that he could not draw his own wand.  _

 

_ “Don’t,” Remus hissed, dragging Sirius back down, and Sirius glared at him before he wrenched his arm away, but he left his wand in his pocket. _

 

_ Meanwhile, Regulus had fired off what looked like a Stunning Spell at James, which James had neatly dodged, just in time for Madam Hooch to call a foul on Regulus. _

 

_ “Drawn wand!” Jamie shouted into her magical megaphone. “Penalty to Gryffindor! Potter will take the shot!” _

 

_ The stadium fell silent as James squared off against Volturnus Flint, bouncing the Quaffle back and forth from one hand to the other. So fast that Remus could barely track the movement, James’s hand shot out, and Flint didn’t move quickly enough -- the bell rang through the stadium, and the Gryffindor supporters erupted in cheers as Jamie updated the score to forty-twenty to Gryffindor. _

 

_ Normal play resumed, but Remus and Sirius were both quiet, watching as Regulus kept his eyes fixed on James a beat longer than necessary before he began flying again, ostensibly searching for the Snitch. _

 

_ Peter saw. “Let it go,” he advised, but mostly looking at Sirius. “The penalty was called. It doesn’t do any good to--” _

 

_ “To what?” Sirius snapped. “Wormtail, if Regulus had Stunned Prongs, and if Prongs had fallen, he’d’ve died.” _

 

_ “But he didn’t,” Lily reminded Sirius, her voice gentle. “Pete’s right. Let it go, Sirius.” She found a smile for him. “And if James heard you say that, you know he’d be offended by you doubting his flying abilities.” _

 

_ Reluctantly, Sirius grinned back at her. When Lily turned away to answer a question that Mary Macdonald was asking her, Sirius settled back in beside Remus, shaking his long black hair out of his eyes. Quietly, so that nobody but Remus could hear him, Sirius muttered, “I still don’t think you should’ve stopped me.” _

 

_ “Which is why I did,” Remus responded, calm. “Someone’s got to.” _

 

_ Sirius dug his elbow into Remus’s side, but with much less force than Remus knew he was capable of, and huffed a grim laugh. “I hate you, Moony.” _

 

_ Remus punched him back. “I hate you too.” _

 

***

 

It was a relief to return to his normal class schedule, although Remus realized quickly that he had quite a bit of damage control to do in his classes that Snape had covered. But his heart leapt into his throat when he had barely walked into his classroom and Parvati Patil raised her hand and said, “Please, sir, do we really have to finish the essay that Professor Snape set us about werewolves?”

 

Remus bought himself a little time by moving deliberately to the front of the room to set his case on the teacher’s desk beside the covered case that held the hinkypunk. He had planned the whole year’s curriculum to avoid exactly this situation -- he wasn’t going to teach the werewolf unit at all. And here he was. It felt as if the grim stone walls were collapsing on him, shrinking him, and he struggled to draw breath.

 

He forced his expression into neutrality. “Werewolves?”

 

With that one word, the classroom exploded in indignant chatter. “Yes -- Snape made us turn to the werewolves chapter, even though it’s at the back of the book --” Parvati started.

 

“And then he demanded a list of differences between werewolves and true wolves or whatever,” interrupted Dean Thomas, “and of course none of us knew any of them except Hermione --”

 

At that, Remus glanced at Hermione out of the corner of his eye, but she sat silently beside Neville, her gaze firmly fixed on the textbook before her. Remus swallowed hard.

 

“It’s not fair!” complained Ron. “He was only filling in, why should he give us homework?”

 

Remus held up a hand, but the complaints kept coming.

 

“We don’t know anything about werewolves--”

 

“--two rolls of parchment!”

 

Finally Remus was able to break in by raising his voice just slightly. “Did you tell Professor Snape we haven’t covered… them yet?” he asked the class, praying that his voice didn’t betray his terror.

 

At least eight of the students tried to answer him at once.

 

“Yes, but he said that we were really behind --”

 

“--he wouldn’t listen --”

 

“ _ \-- two rolls of parchment! _ ”

 

Remus found a smile for them, and they quieted down. “Don’t worry,” he reassured them. “I’ll speak to Professor Snape. You don’t have to do the essay.”

 

The only person who didn’t make some exclamation of relief was Hermione. “Oh no! I’ve already finished it.”

 

Remus forced himself to ignore her. Beating back his panic, he took a deep, shuddering breath, and said, “Now, if you would all be so kind as to open your copies of  _ The Essential Defence Against the Dark Arts _ to chapter seven --” with a bit of a dramatic flourish, he drew the cloth off the glass case, and the class gasped at the sight of the creature within “-- we will begin our discussion of hinkypunks. Get out your quills, and we’ll do a brief overview of the reading.”

 

They did as he said, and for the first time Remus allowed his eyes to find Harry. The boy looked slightly more pale than usual, and there were dark circles under his eyes that seemed to indicate that he hadn’t been sleeping well, but he didn’t look injured. Remus breathed a quiet sigh of relief, reassured by his own observation. 

 

“A hinkypunk is something like a water demon,” Remus began over the scratch of their quills against parchment. “Lures travelers into bogs. You notice the lantern dangling from his hand?” The quills paused as the students glanced up to where Remus was pointing. “Hops ahead -- people follow the light -- then --”

 

In the only example of good timing that day, the hinkypunk smeared its face against the glass, resulting in a disgusting squishing sound. Lavender recoiled in her seat.

 

The rest of the lesson was enjoyable. Remus hoped he wasn’t flattering himself, but the class seemed honestly relieved to have him back. They participated, they asked questions, they collaborated well, and their energy was high for the whole hour. Slowly, Remus’s fear over Snape’s essay began to fade.

 

But when the bell rang, signalling the end of the class, Remus couldn’t stop himself. “Wait a moment, Harry,” he called. “I’d like a word.”

 

He watched as Harry exchanged a glance with Hermione, and Ron clapped him once on the back, before Harry proceeded back up between the student seats to arrive at Remus’s desk. Remus gazed at him, unsure of how to start.

 

“I… heard about the match, and I’m sorry about your broomstick,” he eventually said, moving to his customary perch on the edge of his desk. It still unnerved him, Lily’s eyes in James’s face looking at him with no glimmer of recognition. He tucked the pain away. “Is there any chance of fixing it?”

 

Harry shrugged and shook his head. “No. The tree smashed it to bits.”

 

Remus sighed, the old self-hatred rising up. It was his fault the bloody tree had to be on the grounds at all, despite the threat it constantly posed to students. “They planted the Whomping Willow the same year I arrived at Hogwarts,” he began, wanting to apologize, unable to tell the truth. “People used to play a game, trying to get near enough to touch the trunk. In the end, a boy called Davey Gudgeon nearly lost an eye, and we were forbidden to go near it. No broomstick would have a chance.”

 

_ “Remus,” said Sirius quietly, sinking into the armchair beside Remus’s in the Gryffindor common room. “It’s not your fault. Gudgeon’s an idiot. That has nothing to do with you.” _

 

_ Remus ignored him, keeping his gaze fixed on the dying embers in the fireplace. _

 

Harry shifted his weight from one foot to the other and seemed suddenly fascinated with one of the legs of Remus’s desk. Remus waited.

 

Finally, and without looking up, Harry asked, “Did you hear about the dementors too?”

 

Remus’s eyes narrowed as he studied the boy, watching the shame dart across Harry’s face. “Yes, I did,” he said slowly. “I don’t think any of us have seen Professor Dumbledore that angry. They must have been growing restless for some time… furious at his refusal to let them in the grounds…” Remus hesitated, then decided not to voice his suspicion that Sirius had been at the match. There was no need to frighten the boy. “I suppose they were the reason you fell?” he asked gently.

 

Harry nodded and muttered the word “yes,” but Remus could read the boy’s face well enough at this point to know when he was chewing on his words. Finally, Harry’s head jerked up, his eyes frustrated and defiant. “ _ Why? _ ” he burst out. “Why do they affect me like that? Am I just --”

 

Remus cut him off, unable to bear the idea of the boy thinking there was something wrong with him -- not with everything he’d already survived. “It has nothing to do with weakness,”  Remus said, his voice harsh. “The dementors affect you worse than the others because there are horrors in your past that the others don’t have.”

 

_ Dumbledore’s words seeped into Remus’s mind and he staggered, his legs giving out beneath him. He felt Andromeda Black move to his side and catch his elbow so that he did not fall. He was vaguely aware of her leading him to a chair before Dumbledore’s desk. _

 

_ James… Lily…  _

 

_ Once she was certain that Remus was seated, Andromeda looked up at Dumbledore. “Sirius didn’t sell them out,” she said, her voice firm, decisive. “He wouldn’t. He would never.” _

 

_ Remus barely heard her. With every ounce of strength left in his body, he dragged his head back up and found Dumbledore’s blue eyes. “And Harry?” he asked, hoarsely. _

 

_ “He is alive,” Dumbledore answered gently, ignoring Andromeda. “I sent Hagrid to fetch him. He is to be placed with his aunt and uncle -- Lily’s sister and her husband. He is to have no further contact with the magical world, for his own safety.” _

 

_ Lily’s sister? That horrible woman? She hated Lily. She always had. “But…” _

 

_ “We can discuss this later if you wish, Remus,” Dumbledore cut across him. “But I am afraid there is more….” _

 

Remus shook himself back to the present, to all that was left of his friends standing here before him. Harry was still staring at Remus, confused and frustrated. Somebody owed him an explanation, Remus decided, and if Dumbledore wouldn’t give it to him… 

 

“Dementors are among the foulest creatures that walk this earth,” he started slowly. “They infest the darkest, filthiest places, they glory in decay and despair, they drain peace, hope, and happiness out of the air around them. Even Muggles feel their presence, though they can’t see them.” He stopped himself from shuddering. “Get too near a dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory will be sucked out of you. If it can, the dementor will feed on you long enough to turn you into something like itself -- soulless and evil. You’ll be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life,” he continued, and his eyes found Harry’s, ensuring that he had the boy’s full attention, because it was suddenly the most important thing he’d ever done, making sure that Harry understood this. “And the worst that happened to  _ you _ , Harry, is enough to make anyone fall off their broom. You have nothing to feel ashamed of.”

 

Harry cast his eyes down, his knuckles white as he gripped the strap of his bookbag. His throat was working, and again, Remus waited. 

 

When Harry spoke, his voice was so quiet that Remus had to strain to hear him. “When they get near me… I can hear Voldemort murdering my mum.”

 

Before Remus realized what he was doing, he was reaching for Harry. He wanted nothing more than to pull the boy into a hug, to protect him from everything that had happened to him in his short life. Remus had been the fifth person to hold Harry after he had been born. Ted Tonks, the Healer, had handed the baby to Lily, and then James had taken him into his arms. Sirius had been next, James holding out the little bundle while Lily assured Sirius that he wouldn’t break him. And then Sirius had passed the boy to Remus.

 

Remus had loved this boy his whole life, and Harry didn’t know it. He lowered his arm and curled his hand into a fist against his knee.

 

Harry didn’t notice, lost in thought, still scowling down at Remus’s desk. “Why did they have to come to the match?”

 

Remus sighed. “They’re getting hungry. Dumbledore won’t let them into the school, so their supply of human prey has dried up.” Remus shoved his hands into his pockets and tried not to think of Sirius as human prey. “I don’t think they could resist the large crowd around the Quidditch field. All that excitement -- emotions running high -- it was their idea of a feast.”

 

Harry shivered. “Azkaban must be terrible.”

 

Remus nodded. “The fortress is set on a tiny island, way out to sea, but they don’t need walls and water to keep the prisoners in, not when they’re all trapped inside their own heads, incapable of a single cheerful thought.” Remus sighed, and the memory of the last real Death Eater trial after the end of the war surfaced. Barty Crouch, Junior, sobbing and shaking as he stood trial beside Bellatrix Lestrange, before his father sent him to Azkaban. The boy had been dead before his twentieth birthday. “Most of them go mad within weeks.”

 

Harry finally looked up from Remus’s desk, only to stare absently out at the rain lashing the window panes. “But Sirius Black escaped from them. He got away.”

 

Remus’s whole body flinched at the sound of Sirius’s name, and he knocked his case from the surface of his desk. The few seconds it took to catch it bought him a little time to get his face under control.

 

He cleared his throat and avoided looking Harry in the eye. “Yes, Black must have found a way to fight them. I wouldn’t have believed it possible. Dementors are supposed to drain a wizard of his powers if he is left with them too long.”

 

_ “And,” added Dumbledore, “I have it on good authority from one of my spies that Voldemort is attempting to turn the dementors to his side. I cannot stress enough how important it is that you all master the Patronus Charm.” _

 

_ Movement caught Remus’s eye, and he glanced across the table to see Sirius fidget beside James, his face pale. Remus and Sirius had been caught off guard on a mission last week, had been pinned into an alley by a handful of dementors. Remus didn’t think he’d ever forget the sound of Sirius screaming his father’s name, holding up his hands as if to defend his face. _

 

Harry spoke suddenly, jerking Remus back to the present. “ _ You _ made that dementor on the train back off.” He finally met Remus’s eyes, something like hope darting across his face. 

 

Remus clenched his hands into fists against the memory of Harry, shaking and sweating, on the floor. “There are… certain defenses one can use,” he hedged. “But there was only one dementor on the train. The more there are, the more difficult it becomes to resist.” What Remus didn’t say was that he knew for certain that he would not have been of any use in the Quidditch pitch during the match. He would never have been able to conjure a Patronus powerful enough to get the whole crowd on the pitch to disperse.

 

But Harry would not be deterred. “What defenses? Can you teach me?”

 

Remus sighed and dragged a hand across his face. “I don’t pretend to be an expert at fighting dementors, Harry,” he said, trying to let the boy down gently. “Quite the contrary --”

 

Harry interrupted him, determination shining fierce in his face. “But if the dementors come to another Quidditch match, I need to be able to fight them!”

 

That pulled Remus up short, and he almost huffed a laugh in exasperation. James’s son, always James’s son -- Quidditch above all else. The thought was as comforting as it was terrifying. 

 

Remus studied the boy in front of him. Harry was scared, to be sure -- he had told Remus not a few weeks ago that dementors were his greatest fear. And he wanted to learn how to fight them, so that he could avoid letting his teammates -- his friends -- down. And he was asking Remus for help.

 

_ Lily gently rubbed her hand up and down Harry’s back as he slumbered peacefully on her chest. “It’s going to have to be you who teaches him how to handle the hard stuff, Remus.” _

 

_ He raised his eyebrows at her. “That’s what you and James are for.” _

 

_ She snorted, brushing her hair out of her eyes. “Don’t be silly. I mean, yes, that’s what we’re for, but God knows we can’t do this alone. I need you to --” she waved her free hand through the air, as if she thought she could attract the right words that way. “-- to be the one who teaches him the practical defenses, that it’s okay to be scared, that it doesn’t make you any less brave. You taught me that. I need you to teach my son, okay?” _

 

_ Remus felt his throat tighten, and he tucked his hands into his pockets. “All right.” _

 

“Well…” Remus paused for one more moment. “All right. I’ll try to help.” Harry’s face lit up, and Remus held a hand up. “But it’ll have to wait until next term, I’m afraid. I have a lot to do before the holidays.” He glanced down at the lunar chart on his desk. “I chose a very inconvenient time to fall ill.”

 

“Sir… thank you so much!” Harry stammered, just as the classroom door eased open. Remus glanced over Harry’s shoulder and nodded at Penelope Clearwater as she and her friends began to fill the room. 

 

“You’re welcome.” Remus smiled at Harry and stood up straight. “Now. I’d head out if I were you, Harry. I doubt Professor Flitwick’s attitude about lateness has changed much.”

 

Harry grinned back at him and hitched his bag higher up on his shoulder. “No, sir. Thank you again!” The boy turned to go, and Remus’s gaze followed him out the door. 

 

***

 

November progressed in a stormy, blustery haze. Remus had sought out Snape and told him that the third-year students would not be completing the werewolf essay. Snape had smirked. “And what is it that you’re so afraid they’ll find, Lupin?”

 

Remus had forced himself to meet Snape’s gaze without flinching. “You and I both know, Severus, that substitute teachers don’t have the authority to set their own homework. And…” Remus had steeled himself, feeling his heart thundering in his chest, “we both also know exactly how illegal it is for someone to disclose a third party’s lycanthropy status. While I know it’s not what you were trying to accomplish, a breach of that law does carry a rather heavy fine, so it might be in your best interests to err on the side of caution.”

 

Snape had sneered at Lupin, but after a beat had turned around and swept down the corridor, his black robes billowing behind him. Remus had not sagged in relief until Snape had rounded the corner. He hadn’t dared threaten Snape more explicitly than that. He still needed the Wolfsbane potion, after all, and he knew exactly how much damage Snape could do by tampering with it.

 

Before Remus really realized what was happening, December was staring him down and there were only two weeks left of term. The mood of the OWL students settled back into something resembling normalcy, which undoubtedly had something to do with the Ravenclaw Quidditch team beating Hufflepuff two hundred seventy points to ninety. After that, the Gryffindors didn’t feel it necessary to treat Cedric and his friends with quite as much hostility, with the exception of Fred Weasley, who seemed unable to let it go. 

 

“It’s because we’re tired,” Cedric said frankly when Remus asked him about the game when Cedric had hung back after one of the regular classes. “It’s really rare for one team to play two weekends in a row, but because the schedule was switched around this year -- so Flint could rest his Seeker -- we were up twice. And we hadn’t had time to rest. That’s not an excuse, it’s just how this one went.”

 

Remus nodded thoughtfully, leaning back in his seat behind his desk. He very rarely used the desk chair, but his joints were bothering him in the lead-up to the full moon. “Makes sense. A… a really good friend of mine when I was at Hogwarts was Quidditch captain, and he always refused to hold trainings the last four nights before a match.”

 

Cedric shifted his books to his other arm. “Yeah, I should think about doing that.” He hesitated, then started again. “Sir, I wanted to ask you something…”

 

Remus smiled. “I figured. Go on.”

 

“Well, I’m having a little trouble with the Unforgivable Curse essay, and I was hoping I could come in for some extra help on it?”

 

Remus glanced at his calendar and nodded. “Yes, of course. Term is ending soon, so when would you like to come in?”

 

“Er, I’m free Thursday night,” said Cedric thoughtfully, “but you won’t be, so it’ll have to be the week after —”

 

“What do you mean I won’t be?” Remus asked, the old unease unfurling in his gut, chilling him from the inside out.

 

Cedric’s eyes snapped back into focus and his face flushed with embarrassment. “Er—”

 

Remus waited, smoothing his face over.

 

Cedric shifted uncomfortably. “Well. You’ll. I mean.” His voice dropped to a whisper, even though the classroom was empty but for the two of them. “You’ll be out ill, sir.”

 

The words dropped onto Remus’s sunlit desk, heavy between the two of them. Remus froze. It was closing in on him, he could feel it, he would have to resign, he’d have to leave —

 

“Hey — sir,” Cedric stammered, alarm widening his eyes. “It’s all right. I promise. Nobody cares.”

 

“Who is nobody?” Remus felt the question drop from his numb lips as if someone else had asked it. Again Cedric hesitated, and Remus shook himself. “Cedric, I need you to tell me who else knows.”

 

Another moment passed in which Cedric looked around the room as if hoping someone would materialize and save him. Finally, he sighed. “All I know is that it’s just the eight of us doing OWLs in Care of Magical Creatures, and the six doing OWLs in Astronomy. Three of us are doing both, so that’s really only eleven people. But…” he hesitated, then plunged on, “all the NEWT-level kids in both of those classes probably know too. It… really didn’t take us that long to work it out.”

 

Remus lifted a shaking hand and scrubbed it over his face, unable to look at the boy in front of him any longer. He knew for certain that the Weasley twins, and their friend Lee, were in that Care of Magical Creatures class, and Astoria Greengrass, Angelina Johnson, Mediha Noronha, and Michael Corner were all in Astronomy. And those were only the students that Remus was sure about… 

 

“But it’s all right,” Cedric hurried, his voice sounding far off and muffled. “Look — sir — Professor Lupin, none of us are going to say anything. Honestly, if we were going to, we would have done it by now. You’re fine. We’re not going to tell.” Remus heard him pause, then Cedric continued, defiant now, “I’m not my dad.”

 

Remus forced himself to take a deep breath and lower his hand, meeting the eyes of the boy. He should have expected this, he mused to himself. James and Sirius had only been twelve when they had guessed it, after all. “I’m sorry,” he muttered.

 

Cedric’s head jerked back with his surprise. “For  _ what _ ?”

 

“For...” Remus gestured vaguely. “For putting you in this position.”

 

“None of us care!” Cedric huffed, his exasperation coming through now. “Look, sir, we’ve had five defense professors so far, right? And you’re honestly the best one. I mean — we’ve learned more from you than from all the others combined, but you’re the only one who seems to give a shit about us — sorry,” he interrupted himself, twitching his hand impatiently. “Nobody cares if you’re a w— if you’re something. We want you here as long as you want to be here.”

 

Remus stared at the boy in front of him, and Cedric met his eyes with something like defiance. Years, all those years of refusing to trust anyone, after what Sirius had done, shoving Snape towards him in the hopes that Remus would kill him — and yet, this boy, the son of the man whose job it was to enact policies that would force Remus and his kind into extinction, was promising him that this time it would be different.

 

Finally, Remus nodded once, dropping his gaze. Cedric cleared his throat.

 

“So,” said Cedric loudly, with the distinct air of one trying to get the conversation back to normal, “not this coming Monday but the Monday following? If you’re still willing to help me with my essay?

 

Remus met Cedric’s eyes, and the boy stared him down, refusing to flinch. The silence hung heavy between the two of them.

 

As the clock in the corner ticked on, Remus knew that he had two options. The first was to resign immediately, and leave Hogwarts. He’d have to disappear from the magical world again, because if the public found out what he was, he would never again know peace. Amos Diggory would bring the wrath of God down on him for having such contact with underage wizards, and Remus would be shamed, denied any other employment at every turn, and have to face his father’s disappointment again. 

 

His other option was to trust Cedric, and all the other students. He would have to take them at their word when they told him that he meant something to them, and that they would protect his secret. 

 

Cedric hadn’t dropped Remus’s gaze. One heartbeat. Two. Three. 

 

Finally, Remus cleared his throat. “Next Monday should be fine.”

 

Cedric smiled in relief, and nodded briskly. “Good. I’ll see you then. Thank you, sir.”

 

Remus was barely able to nod, and Cedric opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something else. But after a moment, he gave half a shrug and tightened his grip on his books. “I’ll see you tomorrow for the review session?”

 

Remus nodded again, and Cedric gave him a small smile before heading out the door. As the lock clicked shut behind him, Remus let out a long sigh and let his head fall back against his chair.

 

He supposed it had been stupid to assume that it would be kept a secret. Snape had assigned that essay to the third years in the hope that someone would figure it out. But if what Cedric had said was true… if there were whole cohorts of students in the school who knew, and didn’t care, and hadn’t told anyone… 

 

Maybe it was time that Remus started having a little faith in his students. 

 

He was still in a daze when he went down to dinner and dropped into the seat beside Filius Flitwick at the High Table. Flitwick immediately turned to him, apparently not noticing Remus’s air of distraction.

 

“My boy!” squeaked Flitwick. “The Minister of Magic will apparently be dining with the Headmaster during the last weekend of term. It is customary for some faculty members to join him for a drink in Hogsmeade on the afternoons that this happens. Will you come with us?”

 

Remus huffed a humorless laugh and mechanically dished a portion of the steak-and-kidney pie onto his plate. “Cornelius Fudge isn’t one of my biggest fans, Filius, but I thank you for the invitation.”

 

“Hmm.” Flitwick raised his eyebrows, and Remus was well aware that he hadn’t actually been supposed to refuse, but he couldn’t really find it in himself to care at the moment. “All right, then. What are your plans for the holiday, my boy?”

 

Remus shrugged. “I’m going to go see my father.” Remus had no plans to actually stay with the man long-term, but Lyall had invited him, and this year Remus didn’t have the excuse of work to refuse him. But he didn’t tell Flitwick -- and he wouldn’t be telling his father -- that he would also be making his annual pilgrimage to the churchyard in Godric’s Hollow.

 

Automatically, Remus looked up, scanning the Gryffindor table for that shock of black hair. Ron was sitting quietly beside Hermione, who had a book propped open against a pitcher of pumpkin juice. Harry, across from them, was shoveling food into his mouth, still dressed in his Quidditch things. 

 

Remus wondered if Harry even knew where his parents were buried.

 

He shook himself. He knew he couldn’t give Harry his past back. The most he could do was help him defend himself in the present, and he had already promised to do that. It ate at him, clawed at his insides, the idea that he couldn’t tell Harry who he was. 

 

Maybe it was a good thing that he would be forced to take a break from Hogwarts for a few weeks.


	11. The Churchyard

Remus groaned in agony, his head thumping back against the stone wall of his office as he felt his bones splinter beneath his skin. It was just his luck, he thought wryly as he panted, that the full moon would fall on Christmas Day this year. 

 

The Wolfsbane didn’t seem to be as effective this month, though Remus could have been imagining it -- the December transformation felt more painful than the November and October full moons had, as if Snape hadn’t included as much poppy seed extract as the recipe called for. But it didn’t matter, Remus told himself. As long as he was still a harmless wolf once the moon was fully risen, it didn’t matter how much pain he was in.

 

Remus felt himself drifting out of reality, and he almost breathed a sigh of relief. If he could just shut off for a few hours… if he could just not think… 

 

_ “That’s a good look,” Remus muttered, studying Sirius’s heavily-bearded face as his friend slid into the seat across from Remus in the booth. The pub hidden away in Muggle Manchester was crowded and smoky, and it took Sirius a moment to signal the barmaid over so that he could order a pint. _

 

_ Casually, Sirius waved his middle finger in Remus’s direction as the girl nodded at him and began filling a glass. “Shut up. I’ve been told I look like my father enough times that it’s necessary. In case I run into some of the bastards.” _

 

_ Remus nodded and took a sip of his own drink. “How are you?” _

 

_ Sirius snorted. “You’re my handler. Don’t you know?” _

 

_ “Come on, Padfoot.” Remus twitched a hand impatiently. “We can get to your mission in a moment. You’re missing your godson’s first birthday. How are you?” _

 

_ “You’re missing it too,” Sirius shrugged, but Remus knew him well enough to see through the affected nonchalance. After a beat in which Remus just studied him, Sirius sighed. “It’s shit, mate. I don’t know what to tell you. The kid’s been shut up in hiding his whole life, and we can’t even be with him and Prongs and Lily on his birthday.” _

 

_ A smile tugged up at the corners of Remus’s mouth. “Why do I get the feeling you ignored Dumbledore’s orders to not send presents?” _

 

_ Sirius lifted a hand to his heart as if wounded. “How dare you, Remus. We both know that rule applied to everyone but me.” As Remus laughed, Sirius grinned at him. “Fine, so I did. A toy broomstick. His first broomstick.” _

 

When the wolf opened its eyes in Remus’s office, everything was clearer, sharper. He knew his sense of smell was stronger, and as he prowled around the room, his paws rustling softly against the carpet, he inhaled deeply. He could smell the flurries of snow in the air, the dust motes swirling through the cracks around the windowpanes, the ash rising from the dying embers in the fireplace. 

 

He growled, low in his chest, as his yellow eyes found the latch on the door into the classroom. He reared up onto his hindquarters and batted at the knob, snarling as the spell he had placed on it in his human form caused his paw to slip off. But the still-rational part of his brain knew it was for the best. There were still students in the castle this Christmas.

 

The wolf slunk on his belly over to the threadbare rug before the hearth and sat back on his haunches. The heat radiating from what was left of the kindling warmed his fur, and he sighed, the air huffing out through his damp snout. One last shudder rippled through his frame as the transformation solidified, and some small part of his mind registered that Harry was probably still somewhere in the castle. 

 

The wolf slid down to lie prone, propping his head between his paws. He had promised himself he wouldn’t think of it -- he would get through this full moon, and then he would leave the castle, even if only for a little while. It was what was best. It was what was best for everybody.

 

***

 

Christmas with his father was an ordeal. 

 

Not since he had finished at Hogwarts as a student had Remus spent an extended period of time with his father, let alone around the holidays. And yet as they sat across from each other in Lyall’s sitting room, after a dinner in which Lyall had talked mostly about his work at the Ministry of Magic, that painting of a family that had never really existed staring down at them, Remus felt as if no time had passed at all. He was still small, still scared, still the target of his father’s disgust poorly disguised as care. 

 

“So, son,” Lyall began, taking a sip of his eggnog, “how are your classes progressing?”

 

Remus swirled his own eggnog around in his glass. The classes were going well, he supposed, but that seemed such a small portion of his life at Hogwarts that it almost wasn’t worth mentioning. If Cedric Diggory was to be believed, a decent number of the older students knew what Remus was, had known for quite some time, and yet were not saying anything about it. Dementors had gained access to the Hogwarts grounds, and, Remus was certain, Sirius had too. He was lying to almost everyone on the faculty about what he knew or suspected. And he was slated to give Harry Potter private lessons that would enable him to best his greatest fear.

 

He sipped his own drink. “Fine, I suppose. I just finished marking the exams for the end of the fall term, and nearly everyone did very well.”

 

Lyall scoffed. “Back in my day, it was actually difficult to get high marks, Remus. Competition fosters rigor.”

 

Rather than pointing out that his father had never stood at the front of a classroom in his life, Remus drank more of his eggnog. There wasn’t enough brandy in it.

 

“Although,” Lyall went on, “I can’t imagine it’s easy to keep the students motivated, what with all the nastiness about this Black business.”

 

Remus made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat.

 

The rest of the evening passed in much of the same way, with Lyall changing the topic as it suited him and imagining Remus’s agreement with his statements where none really existed. It was a relief when Lyall, claiming a headache to cover how drunk he truly was, removed himself to bed sometime after midnight. As he stumbled up the stairs, he pointed his wand at the lamps in the room, snuffing them all and leaving Remus alone with only the dying embers of the fire for company. 

 

Sighing, Remus stood and stretched, and picked up his mug with the intention of taking it to the kitchen. A movement of the family portrait caught his eye, and he turned to face it fully.

 

He ignored the painted image of Lyall, focusing instead on the toddler version of himself tucked into his mother’s lap. He didn’t look like her at all in that painting, he mused, because his father had instructed the artist to lighten Remus’s skin so much. 

 

But the version of Hope mounted there in oil paint smiled down on her adult son, and Remus felt himself sinking back down onto the sofa as he held her gaze. He strained his ears, but his father didn’t appear to be moving about the house anymore. Remus cleared his throat and dragged his hands down his face. The fading fire glowing a burnt orange through his eyelids before he opened them again. “Hi, Mum.”

 

The image of Hope smiled gently, her teeth gleaming against her dark skin.

 

“It’s all such a mess,” he whispered to her, clasping his hands in his lap. “I don’t know… it never made sense that Sirius did it, that he sold out James and Lily and… Harry like that. But it was the only explanation that made sense. Lily and James and Peter were dead, and the simplest explanation is usually the right one, isn’t it?”

 

He could have been imagining it, but he thought that Hope’s smile shifted to one of pity.

 

“I know,” he groaned, slumping back. “You taught me better than to accept that, didn’t you? You taught me that if you’d accepted the simplest answer as the best one, you never would have accepted that Dad’s a wizard. But I don’t know what else to do  _ but _ accept it. I don’t know where else to look. Because…” he took a deep breath and searched his mother’s face. “Because if Sirius is innocent, if this feeling in my gut is right, and I’ve ignored it for twelve years, then it’s my fault that an innocent man was locked up in Azkaban. It’s my fault that Harry grew up with people who didn’t give a damn about him. And what am I supposed to do with that? How am I supposed to explain that to James when I see him again?”

 

Hope didn’t answer, and Remus knew he was a fool for having expected her to.

 

“He’s out there somewhere,” Remus murmured, his gaze drifting from his mother’s face to the window. It was too dark for him to see out, and his own reflection gleamed back at him, murky in the blackness. “Sirius is. And he always had a plan, Mum. Even if it made no damn sense, there was always some sort of plan.” He rolled his head back around to look at her again. Her eyes twinkled, and a memory of her voice floated up. 

 

_ “Strain credulity, Remus. Always. How dull would it be if everything was only as it appeared all the time?” _

 

Remus sighed and heaved himself to his feet, limbs heavy with the alcohol. “I love you, Mum. I miss you.”

 

He could almost feel her smile on his back as he ascended the staircase, leaving what was left of the fire to burn itself out.

 

***

 

Godric’s Hollow was tucked into the Devon countryside, a few miles away from the Potter country manor. Usually, when Remus made his annual return, he would stay in a tiny magical inn in Exeter, but this year he wondered if it might not be best to avoid Wizard Britain altogether. He was honestly surprised it hadn’t yet gotten out that Hogwarts’s current Defense professor had been a school friend of Sirius Black, and he really had no way to trigger that realization. 

 

He briefly considered staying in Bristol, just so he could slip into the King’s Arms and maybe catch a glimpse of Isaac, but he decided against it. He had removed himself from Isaac’s life as painlessly as possible, and there was no reason to risk being seen and getting himself wrapped up in a conversation. There was already a pang in his heart whenever he thought of his ex, and there was truly nothing to recommend exposing himself to even more pain.

 

In the end, Remus decided on a Muggle inn off the main street of Tiverton, prioritizing anonymity over comfort. And it was close enough to Godric’s Hollow that apparition wouldn’t be too difficult. He was only staying for one night, anyhow.

 

He checked in as early as possible so that he could drop his bag down on the worn comforter that covered the bed in his room. Snow flurried gently by outside the window, and Remus paused a moment to look at it. This was the twelfth Christmas without Lily and James and Peter in the world, the thirteenth Christmas since that last warm night spent huddled around the hearth in the tiny cottage in Godric’s Hollow.

 

_ James sat back, eyebrows raised and a smile dancing around his lips, as he adjusted his crooked glasses to watch Lily levitate silver baubles to float near the ceiling of the sitting room. In James’s arms, Harry babbled happily, chubby hands reaching up as if he would clutch all the little glass balls close to his chest.  If Lily and James stayed true to form, Harry was about to be thoroughly spoiled for the third major holiday of his young life. And it wasn’t just the baby’s parents; the pile of gifts from Eshnaa and Fatapal’s extended families from both Eid al-Fatir and Eid al-Adha hadn’t yet been fully put away. _

 

_ It was close quarters that Christmas Eve. Lily and James had invited all their friends to dinner at the cottage, before they all scattered for family obligations the following day. Even Ted and Andromeda had successfully shouted down Sirius’s objections that it wasn’t safe for them to invite him for Christmas. But for now, Sirius and Mary shared an armchair in the corner, and Remus held out a stuffed bear to baby Harry from his seat on the sofa beside James. Just then, Marlene wandered in from the kitchen, bearing a fresh tray of glasses of eggnog. Peter followed her, balancing a tray of cakes.  _

 

_ Lily put her wand down on the arm of the sofa and swept her hair out of her eyes. She still kept twitching at it impatiently, unfamiliar with the new short length that she’d cropped it to after Harry had been born. “Mar, did you check on the roast?” _

 

_ Marlene passed the eggnog around. “Yeah, I did. Another fifteen minutes or so.” _

 

_ Sirius pointed his wand at Peter, who flinched as a cake flew off the tray and into Sirius’s hand. “But I’m hungry now.” _

 

_ Lily rolled her eyes, and Mary smacked his chest. “You could have cooked it yourself,” Mary scolded. “Started it whenever you liked.” _

 

_ James tucked his arms around baby Harry’s chest and stood so the boy’s legs dangled while he gurgled contentedly. “You practically live in my house, Pads. You know you have open access to the kitchen.” _

 

_ Sirius raised his hands in surrender. “Fair points, all of you. I’ll shut up.” He turned to Lily. “Evans, I’m sure it’ll be delicious, and as always, I am extremely grateful for a seat at your table.” _

 

_ Lily snorted. “Shut up and come help me with this garland.” _

 

_ Sirius beamed back at her, pecked Mary on the cheek, and bounded up out of his chair. Remus and James traded amused glances over the baby’s head.  _

 

_ As anyone could have predicted, Sirius helping Lily with the garland quickly devolved into Sirius scooping Harry out of James’s lap, wrapping him in the garland, and hoisting the giggling bundle onto a hook by the archway into the kitchen. Lily had just thrown a silver bauble at Sirius when the timer on the stove went off. _

 

_ Still laughing, Remus lifted Harry down from his perch and tucked him in his arms to proceed in for dinner. He gently untangled the boy and pulled the high chair between his seat and Lily’s, and once Harry was seated, his fat little fists banged against the tray. _

 

_ “All right, kid, damn,” James muttered, unscrewing the lid of a jar of baby food. “You get that from your mother, I swear.” _

 

_ “You love it,” Lily shot back without looking up from the dish of potatoes she was setting down on the table. _

 

_ “I really do.” _

 

_ Once everyone was settled, with loaded plates, Lily stood from her seat at the head of the table, wine glass in hand. As everyone turned to her, their own glasses raised expectantly, she gave a quick laugh and again brushed at her hair. “This is usually my dad’s thing,” she grumbled, but caught James’s eye and smiled warmly at him. _

 

_ “It’s been a hard year,” said Lily, looking around at them all. “We’ve lost some friends. Good people. And we miss them every day.” She took a deep breath, and Remus watched her eyes flicker down to the tabletop. But when she looked back up, her face was again wreathed in smiles. “But James and I were also… so blessed, this year, to welcome our son.” She reached around Remus to ruffle the baby’s hair, and he gurgled happily up at her. “Because even though my husband and I are incredibly irresponsible, and forget to use birth control in the middle of wartime… Harry is the most precious thing in the world to us. And we are so grateful to you all for loving him unconditionally, as we do.” _

 

_ She shifted her weight and raised her glass higher. “To family. Happy Christmas.” _

 

_ “Happy Christmas,” they all echoed, and drank. _

 

_ “Gah!” burst out Harry, smiling brightly as he raised his hands above his head. _

 

_ “That’s right, mate,” said James, as Sirius barked out a laugh.  _

 

***

 

When Remus Apparated at the edge of the woods that surrounded Godric’s Hollow, gentle flurries of snow were blowing down from the steel grey sky. He shivered a little in his heavy Muggle coat, making a mental note to patch the hole in the left elbow before he went back to Hogwarts, before he tucked his hands into his pockets and walked to the main road into the village. He sighed, and his breath fogged into a cloud around his face.

 

Godric’s Hollow didn’t change much from year to year. Soft mounds of snow sat atop the thatched cottage roofs, and the light of the street lamps glowed golden as Remus turned along the High Street. Windows glowed like little jewels as he progressed through the village, and he braced himself as he rounded the corner. 

 

And there it was, as ever. Snowfall cloaked the three statues, wrapping gently around Lily’s shoulders and cascading down James’s back, dusting the top of little Harry’s head. Remus paused to really study them. The rendering of Lily was fairly true to how she had been in life, with her soft dimples and flowing hair, her eyes gentle as she looked down at her son. But James… Remus always wondered who had been in charge of reproducing James’s face there in stone forever. James’s nose had been sharpened, his brow lightened, his hair tamed. It really was very little like James as he had been; it was a whitewashed rendering of him. And of course, this version of Harry had been made over in this version of his father’s image.

 

When Remus had looked his fill, he moved on to Church Lane. The stained glass windows of the little chapel glimmered dimly, flickering with the candlelight in the building, but Remus did not pause there as he pushed through the kissing gate.

 

He had walked this path often enough that he moved through the churchyard automatically. Lining the pathways were countless headstones bearing familiar names, marking the generations as they moved through time. Every so often he moved through a patch of shadow cast by the branch of a tree, heavy with snow. His hands balled into fists in his pockets as he thought back to the first time he had traveled this path, the day of the funeral, the day that Sirius had turned twenty-two. He had been alone then, too.

 

At last, he reached them. He sighed as he looked down on the great stone that marked where they lay, bearing their dates of birth and death, and that epitaph that Dumbledore had selected. “ _ The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death…” _ Remus had always hated that.

 

After a moment, he hunched his shoulders and took another step forward. “Hello, you two.”

 

The silence around him seemed muffled by the snow, somehow. He cleared his throat.

 

“I can’t believe it’s been twelve years. And I can’t believe this past year…” he sighed, shaking his head, and freed one hand from his pocket to drag it down his face. “I don’t know what to think. I’d never have believed it of Sirius -- none of us ever would have -- but --” he stuttered “--nothing else makes sense. You’re both gone. Wormtail is gone.  I don’t know…” 

 

His voice trailed off as he tucked his hand back into his pocket. “I wish you both were here. I mean -- I always wish you both were here, but… Prongs, you always understood Padfoot better than any of us. And Lily… you were smarter than anyone else I knew. I can’t do this without you. I can’t  _ understand  _ it without you.” He waited, half-expecting an answer, but of course there was none. There was never an answer.

 

He rolled his head around on his neck. “But I’ve met Harry, finally.” He laughed once. “I know I should have ignored Dumbledore, I should have gone to find him sooner, but… oh God.” A smile lingered on his face as he thought of the boy. “He’s so  _ shy _ . No one who’d known either of you could have ever guessed that your boy would be shy. But my God, James… he’s you in miniature. He even messes with his glasses the way you did. I haven’t seen him fly yet, but everyone says… well, he might be better than you, mate. You’d be proud.

 

“And Lily… he’s kind like you, sarcastic like you. God, the boy is a smartass. He’s got this smile…” he rolled the words around his mouth, trying to come up with the wording that would do Harry justice, “…that comes out so slowly, but then it shines. He’s bright, but he doesn’t trust himself. And one of his best friends is the smartest witch in any of my classes, and I feel like he lets her overshadow him quite a bit. But his friends love him. He’s fiercely loyal to them, and they to him, I can tell.

 

“But… if half the stories about what he’s lived through these last two years are true, then he’s so brave. And I --” he cut himself off and cleared his throat again, knowing that his voice had gone harsh. “I’m  _ so proud  _ of him, and I know you would be too, but it’s also… we were fighting so that he and children like him wouldn’t have to. But he does. They do. Does this mean we failed him? That I failed you all?”

 

Again, his hands clenched into fists in his pocket. “I’m so sorry. I’m  _ so sorry.  _ I should have…”

 

But he was unable to finish the sentence. He couldn’t say what he had said every year previous, that he should have been keeping a closer eye on Sirius, that he should have seen it coming, that he should have done something to stop it. It didn’t taste right in his mouth anymore.

 

“I’ll make you a promise,” he said roughly, blinking at the tombstone through the mist in his eyes, as if his friends could see his honesty. “I  _ will  _ find out what happened. Maybe we’ve been right about everything all along, but… maybe we’ve been wrong. I  _ will _ find out. I owe you all that much.”

 

He stood there for a moment, trying to get his breathing under control. Then, with a glance around to make sure he wasn’t being observed, he knelt down and drew his wand. A wreath of Christmas roses flowed from the tip, and he caught it and laid it gently against the stone.

 

He stayed there for a beat. “I love you,” he whispered. “I miss you.”

 

The cold from the snow seeped through the knees of his trousers, and he stood, dusting the powder from his hands and slipping them into his pocket again. With one last lingering look at the place where the two best friends he’d ever had had been laid to rest, Remus turned back to the kissing gate.

 

Movement in the woods beyond the wrought iron fence caught his eye, and reflexively he twitched his hand towards his wand. His eyes narrowed as he peered into the shadows, and slowly, he slipped his wand from his pocket. Another beat of silence, and then he thought he saw some tree branches shudder as snow slipped from them to the ground with a soft thump. But the rest of the air was still.

 

Remus took a deep breath and tightened his grip on his wand as he stepped off the path that led to the kissing gate. His footsteps through the snow were muffled as he advanced towards the darkness of the forest, his breath emerging in visible puffs before his face.

 

It seemed to take him much longer than it should have to cross the distance to the fence, his pulse loud in his own ears. He reached out his left hand and wrapped it around the fence post, feeling the cold from the iron seep into his skin through his gloves. He swallowed hard, then whispered, “Who’s there?”

 

There was no response. Remus didn’t move. He debated for a moment casting a  _ Homenum revelio _ charm, but he had known for years that the spell didn’t reveal the presence of transformed Animagi.

 

“Sirius?” he breathed.

 

He waited another moment. Nothing. 

 

Slowly, Remus lifted his wand. “ _ Lumos. _ ”

 

He moved the beam of light slowly through the forest, illuminating patches of tree bark here and there. The branches of the pines casting eerie shadows against the trunks of the trees behind them. The night was so still that Remus thought he could feel the breath freeze in his lungs.

 

Then, suddenly, something gleamed. Remus froze as he shifted the light from his wand just slightly -- and it fully illuminated a pair of pale yellow eyes, several feet back from the forest’s edge.

 

Neither of them moved. The dog’s eyes did not blink.

 

Remus tried again to swallow the lump in his throat, then choked out, “Padfoot?”

 

So quickly that Remus could barely track the motion, the dog bolted. It scrambled around and took off through the trees, snow scattering beneath its paws. Remus tightened his hold on the fence post, preparing to jump, then hesitated. 

 

If that had really been Sirius -- Remus bit back the small voice in the back of his mind that insisted it had been Sirius, of course it was Sirius -- then he had been silently watching Remus for God only knew how long. Remus’s guard had been down, he had been emotionally compromised, he hadn’t been paying any attention to his surroundings. Sirius would have had more than enough opportunity to attack Remus from behind. 

 

Sirius could have killed Remus. If Sirius were a Death Eater, he  _ should _ have killed Remus. He should have killed the person best equipped to help Dumbledore and the Ministry catch him.

 

So why hadn’t he?

 

Remus released the fence post and slowly stepped back, still staring at the spot where Sirius had vanished. Why was he still alive? Why hadn’t Sirius killed him?

 

Heart thundering in his chest, Remus breathed deep as he turned back towards the kissing gate. Not only had Sirius let him live, he had run from Remus. If Sirius Black were truly the man who had leveled thirteen people with a single curse, then Remus, all alone and not defending himself, would certainly present no kind of threat, especially a threat worth running from.

 

It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense.

 

Without paying any attention to his surroundings, Remus walked blindly out of the churchyard and made his way to the edge of the village. Every flicker of movement in his peripheral vision caused his eyes to snap up, but there was no more sign of Sirius. 

 

Remus reached the edge of Godric’s Hollow just as a light snow began to fall, adding to the mounds of white that had already stuck to the ground. He paused, shoving his hands into his pockets, and turned back to cast a long look up the village’s High Street, the war memorial that concealed that statue of the fictionalized Potters just barely visible in the distance. 

 

Sirius had had the perfect chance to kill Remus, and hadn’t taken it. And Sirius Black had never thrown away an opportunity in his life. It didn’t make sense, not if Sirius was a Death Eater.

 

So then the only explanation was… 

 

_ No.  _ Remus shrugged the thought off. He’d deal with it later. Now, he had to get out of the cold.

 

He found a hidden spot in the shadow of a warehouse and Disapparated, landing in the back alley behind his inn in Tiverton. He could hear the muffled sounds from the main street as he hunched his shoulders and rounded the building, his feet squelching through the dirty frost left over from the last night’s snow. As he pulled the door open, he nodded at the bored-looking girl at the front desk before silently proceeding upstairs.

 

Remus pulled the door to his room open, prepared to collapse fully clothed onto the bed. He stumbled, however, at the sight of a regal-looking screech owl perched sternly on the footboard. 

 

He sighed, and under the bird’s observation, tugged off his gloves and coat, draping them all over the armchair in the corner. “Hello there,” he murmured to the owl. “You must have been sent by Minerva.”

 

The owl hooted in response, and stuck out its leg, so that Remus could pull off the curl of parchment tied to it. Remus did so, and as the owl took off through the window that he didn’t recall leaving open, Remus sank slowly down onto the mattress and scanned Minerva’s precise handwriting.

 

_ Remus, _

 

_ It seems that someone anonymously sent Harry Potter a Firebolt for Christmas. Miss Granger reported it to me, and shared with me her concerns that it was sent by Sirius Black, and has some concealed curses placed upon it. I agree with her assessment and have confiscated the broomstick accordingly. Filius and I have already began testing it, but we could very much use your expertise. There is no need to hurry back to the castle tonight; I would simply appreciate it if you could proceed directly to my office upon your return tomorrow. _

 

_ Thank you, _

_ M. McGonagall. _

 

Remus’s hand curled into a fist around the parchment. His first thought was that Sirius would never tamper with a broomstick, knowing what Quidditch had meant to James.

 

Immediately, he was ashamed of himself. Even if he was entertaining the idea that Sirius was innocent, he had to remain objective -- he couldn’t let sentimentality bog him down if he was to truly figure out what had happened twelve years ago. He took a deep breath and pressed his free hand to his forehead.

 

_ “How dare you, Remus. We both know that rule applied to everyone but me. Fine, so I did. A toy broomstick. His first broomstick.” _

 

Remus lay back, staring up at the shadowy ceiling. He supposed this would decide it for him, truly. If sirius had sent Harry a cursed broomstick, then whatever doubts Remus had about Sirius’s guilt would have to be shoved aside. But if Sirius had sent Harry a top-of-the-line racing broom to replace the broomstick that had been destroyed just weeks ago, simply because Sirius would know what it would mean to a Quidditch player, because Harry was Sirius’s godson and Sirius had spent the first fifteen months of the boy’s life spoiling him rotten… then… 

 

Remus sighed. He supposed he would cross that bridge when he got to it.

 

He knew very few things for certain anymore, he realized. But today Sirius could have killed him, and had chosen not to. And three days ago, Sirius had sent the best broomstick money could buy to his godson.

 

These were not the acts of a man longing for the return of Lord Voldemort.


	12. The Patronus

“Have you found anything so far?” Remus asked, pushing open the door to Flitwick’s office. He had been back in the castle just long enough to deposit his bag into his rooms before he had come straight here. 

 

Flitwick and Minerva looked up at him from where they were huddled around Flitwick’s desk. Sitting on the wooden surface was an iron stand bearing what looked like, to Remus’s untrained eye, an incredibly expensive racing broom.

 

“Only charms that will prevent us from tracking its origin,” Minerva answered him, removing her tall pointed hat and placing it on a small table off to the side. “So far, there has been no trace of any kind of poison imbued in the polish, or any curses activated by touch. What we’re working on now is to test for any hexes or jinxes that could disrupt its flight pattern.”

 

“Do you have any thoughts on where we should start?” squeaked Flitwick, eyeing Remus over his bushy white beard. 

 

Remus opened his mouth to issue a general denial, then hesitated. He knew almost nothing for certain anymore -- about Sirius, about any of it. But he was still alive, and it was because Sirius hadn’t taken a picture perfect opportunity to kill him. 

 

“You won’t find anything,” Remus heard himself say. “Even if this broom is from Sirius, he won’t have tampered with it.”

 

The other two stared at him. “What?” asked Flitwick, after a beat. 

 

Remus took a deep breath. “This… this kind of thing was never Sirius’s style. If we want to say that on Halloween he tried to break into Gryffindor Tower to attack Harry with a knife, fine. If we want to say that he was in the stands at that Quidditch game so he could get a curse off at Harry, and that’s why the dementors were acting up, I could agree with that. But this kind of… stealthiness has never been his style. Sirius doesn’t have the patience for a sneak attack.”

 

Flitwick was still gazing at Remus with a mixture of surprise and horror. Minerva, however, frowned. “What are you saying, Remus?”

 

“That Sirius has always been more  _ direct _ than this,” he replied, moving farther into the room, into the circle of light from the lamp on the desk. “If he wanted to kill Harry, he’d do it face to face. You remember his fatal flaw as a dueler, Minerva? He always went for the obvious attack. Never gave enough attention to covering himself, or removing himself from danger. He wouldn’t anonymously send a cursed broomstick.”

 

Minerva narrowed her eyes at Remus even as Flitwick sputtered. “Has something happened, Remus?”

 

Remus looked away from her and shifted his weight, then wandered over to the window and looked out at the fading twilight. Slowly, he began to tell them both about Godric’s Hollow: visiting the graves, seeing the snow fall from the branch, approaching the source of the movement. But here he hesitated. He couldn't very well tell Minerva and Flitwick that Sirius was an illegal animagus, not without revealing quite a bit of information that he wasn’t ready to part with. “I saw him,” he said, reluctantly.

 

“Black?” demanded Flitwick.

 

Remus nodded, still not looking at either of them. “He was just standing there, back from the trees a bit. And then… we made eye contact, but before I could do anything, he turned and ran.”

 

“And that’s all he did?” pressed Minerva. “He didn’t approach you, he didn’t say anything?”

 

“No, nothing like that. And I’d been standing with my back to him for at least a half hour before that, Minerva. He had a clear shot at me from behind if he wanted to take it.”

 

Flitwick banged a fist down on the desktop. “Are we the first people you’ve told, Remus? Why in God’s name haven’t you reported this?”

 

“And say what?” Remus asked, finally turning to him and meeting the anger in his eyes. “That I spotted Sirius Black, and he didn’t kill me?”

 

“It could inform the search!”

 

“It wouldn’t inform the search at all,” Remus retorted, turning back to the window. “Do we have any reason whatsoever to believe that Sirius won’t head right back here, if we’re all convinced he’s trying to kill Harry?”

 

Flitwick sputtered. “My boy! That makes no sense!”

 

Remus snorted, glancing over his shoulder. “Very little of this does, if you stop to think about it.”

 

Suddenly Minerva stood up straight and started for the door. “Do you know, Filius, I’ve just remembered that I have a Probity Probe in my office. I haven’t tried to use it in ages, though, so God only knows if it will still work. Remus, come with me to fetch it.”

 

Remus felt Flitwick’s eyes burning into the back of his neck as he followed Minerva out of the office. She was walking quickly, more so than normal, and Remus kept pace with her silently until they’d rounded a corner into the main third floor corridor. She spun on him, gripped his elbow, and drew him into an empty alcove built for a suit of armor. “What are you doing?” she demanded, her voice low, angry.

 

Remus met her gaze head on. “It doesn’t add up, Minerva.”

 

“What are you  _ doing _ ?” she hissed again, glancing around to ensure they were alone as she took a step towards him. “Remus, this is  _ dangerous _ . It’s not just about Sirius Black! And while I do agree that some of his choices don’t make sense, they  _ shouldn’t _ be making sense! I know he was your friend, but he was also a Death Eater, and twelve years in Azkaban would turn anyone irrational! And the last thing you should be caught doing right now--”

 

“Is what, revealing an affiliation?” Remus huffed a laugh, remembering his father’s words from the summer.

 

“ _ Yes _ !” insisted Minerva. “Remus, I --” she sighed, and started over. “Listen. Listen to me. I had as hard a time believing it when Dumbledore told me as anyone did. But James and Lily are gone, Remus. They’re gone. Peter is gone. And you’re not helping them by putting yourself into a position where Barty Crouch and Amelia Bones would call for your arrest.”

 

Remus sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Just… hear me out, Minerva. He could have killed me, and he didn’t. On Halloween, he could have killed Harry without much effort at all, and he didn’t. This thing with the broomstick…” Remus gestured over his shoulder in the direction of Flitwick’s office, “it’s not him. It’s not something he would do.”

 

Minerva sighed and folded her arms across his chest. “So. What, then? Maybe you’re right, Remus. Maybe Sirius didn’t break out of Azkaban to kill Harry. Maybe he wants something else entirely. All well and good. But then how do you explain James and Lily and Peter?”

 

That brought Remus up short. “I don’t know.” His voice was hollow. 

 

Minerva surveyed him, her expression shifting from anger to pity, and Remus hated it. “We can all agree that we want Harry to be safe, Remus,” she said quietly. “And while… I do agree that anonymously sending a secretly cursed gift isn’t exactly Sirius Black’s style, we still owe it to this child to check, just to make sure.”

 

Remus sighed. “Yes. You’re right.”

 

She released her grip on his elbow to gently pat his shoulder. “Now. I really do have a Probity Probe in my office. Come.”

 

She stepped away from him, back into the center of the corridor, and waited. Remus balled his hands into fists in his pockets and, after a beat, followed her.

 

***

 

“Hey Harry,” Seamus Finnigan called across the classroom in the few minutes before Remus called class to order. “What’s the best-case scenario for us with the Quidditch match in the middle of February? Ravenclaw versus Slytherin?”

 

Remus looked up from unpacking his case and watched Harry scowl slightly as he answered Seamus’s question. “It doesn’t really matter by itself. What matters is that whoever loses this match, also loses to us when we play them.”

 

Seamus hummed and nodded, while Dean raised his eyebrows. “Yeah?”

 

Harry nodded, rolling his head around on his neck and staring off into space. “Yeah. Because right now, because we lost to Hufflepuff by a hundred points --” guilt twisted his mouth up “--we’re at the bottom of the table. So we have to hope that somebody loses two games in a row, so they’re at a deficit of more than a hundred points.”

 

Seamus again nodded in understanding just as the minute hand on the clock moved to the twelve, and Remus stepped out from behind his case. “Welcome back, everyone,” he greeted them, and they murmured in response. “I hope you all had a restful holiday.”

 

His eyes flickered over all of them, taking a headcount to ensure that all eight of them were present. Hermione was sharing a table with Neville, directly behind Harry and Ron, which by itself wasn’t unusual. But Remus couldn’t help but notice how stiff Ron’s back was, and how Hermione’s eyes were fixed down on the surface of her desk. Frowning, Remus went on, “We’re beginning with vampires today, which I know that some of you have very much been looking forward to. Now… I don’t expect you to have actually done any studying over the break, but can anyone volunteer information that they already know about vampirism?”

 

There was a beat wherein everyone looked at Hermione, who resolutely lifted neither her eyes or her hand. Remus, as surprised as anyone, glanced around at the rest of them. Harry looked a touch guilty, but Ron stared rigidly forward. Before the silence could linger too long, though, Dean Thomas raised his hand. Remus nodded at him, and he said, “Er… even though a lot of people don’t believe this, they’re born, not made.” 

 

“Good. Parvati?” Remus prompted her, and she lowered her hand to answer. 

 

The lesson passed quickly. As it was just an introductory day, Remus had them mostly working together out of the books, and engaging in some light classroom discussion. At the end of the hour, when he dismissed them, he kept an eye on Hermione again. She didn’t try to talk to Harry and Ron, and they ignored her too as she shouldered her bag and darted out the door. Harry muttered something to Ron and waved him off before sliding up to Remus’s desk. “Professor?”

 

“Yes, Harry?” Remus replied, bracing himself. 

 

Harry shifted his weight nervously. “Sir, I was hoping… that is, I was wondering if you were still willing to work with me about… the dementors?”

 

Remus sighed. “Ah, yes. Let me see….” He checked the planner on his desk. The fifth years were still meeting on Mondays and Wednesdays after dinner. “How about eight o’clock on Thursday evening?” he asked Harry, making a mental list of what he’d need. Room to move around, to be certain, and something to emulate a dementor… “The History of Magic classroom should be large enough. I’ll have to think carefully about how we’re going to do this. We can’t bring a real dementor into the castle to practice on.”

 

Harry nodded, smiling as he hitched his bag higher up onto his shoulder. “Thank you, sir. I’ll see you on Thursday evening?”

 

Remus nodded and grinned back at him as Harry left, then exhaled. He was about to expose a thirteen-year-old to extensive mental trauma in an effort to teach him to perform magic that should be far above his ability level. He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. If anyone could do it, Remus knew that it would be Harry.

 

_ “Very nice,” hummed Professor Epstein as indistinct silvery wisps floated around her. “But you all must remember, we are in a well-lit classroom under no immediate threat. These are unfortunately not the conditions under which you would need to conjure a Patronus.” _

 

_ “Right little killjoy, isn’t she?” Sirius muttered as he joined Remus in leaning against the back wall of the Defense classroom. “Wouldn’t kill her to give us some positive reinforcement.” _

 

_ “You don’t need positive reinforcement,” Remus whispered back, nodding at the great silver panther circling the edge of the room, weaving between clumps of the other sixth-year NEWT students struggling, with varying degrees of difficulty and success, to conjure corporeal Patronuses. _

 

_ Sirius snorted. “You’re the one always telling me it’s not always about me, Moony. Lighten up. And you’re not even trying.” _

 

_ Remus sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I can conjure a Patronus.” _

 

_ “I know that and you know that. Epstein doesn’t know that. And Epstein is the one handing out the marks.” _

 

_ “Sirius, I can’t conjure a wolf Patronus when Snape is in the room,” Remus hissed, sneaking a glance over at where Snape was standing clear on the other side of the classroom, waving his wand almost lazily. _

 

_ “It’s a wolf, Remus.” Sirius rolled his eyes. “A normal wolf. It wouldn't give shit away.” _

 

_ Remus shrugged. “Even so.” _

 

_ “Oy!” called James from a few feet away, and Remus and Sirius turned just in time to see him triumphantly raise both fists in the air, a gleaming silver stag pacing about in front of him. _

 

_ “Show off,” Sirius shouted back, over the smattering of applause from some of the other students. Peter, whose forehead was glistening with the effort of trying so hard, was beaming. “But see?” Sirius whispered to Remus. “Nobody’s worried about James outing himself as an illegal Animagus.” _

 

_ Remus snorted. “Right. Because that’s really a fair analogy.” _

 

_ Lily, laughing at something that her friend Mary had said, took a moment to tie her hair up into a knot on the top of her head. Then, her face screwed up in concentration, she pointed her wand at an empty space in the room and said in a clear voice, “Expecto patronum!” _

 

_ A stream of silver, thicker than the wisps she’d conjured before, spilled from her wand and seemed to puddle in midair for just a moment before it began to take shape. Remus and Sirius watched with interest as four long spindly legs extended down to the floor, as a slender, elegant neck stretched up, leading to a narrow head that sprouting delicate little ears… _

 

_ No one in the room moved as a shining silver doe blinked its gleaming eyes up at Lily. _

 

_ Her face flushed beet red as she darted a glance up at James, who stared at the doe with wide, shocked eyes. Sirius dropped his arms from where they had been folded across his chest. _

 

_ “Excellent work, Miss Evans!” exclaimed Professor Epstein, clearly unaware of the extent of the teenage drama unfolding in her classroom. “Now -- seeing as to how you, Black, and Potter are the only ones who have successfully conjured corporeal Patronuses, do spread out and assist your classmates.” _

 

_ After another beat, the babble in the room picked up again. Lily quickly looked away from James and tugged her hair down so that it hung in front of her face. James watched her for another moment, his eyes still wide and the beginnings of a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. “I don’t know about you, Moony,” grinned Sirius as he shoved away from the wall to head for Peter, “but my life just got quite a bit more interesting.” _

 

***

 

Remus was running late on Thursday evening. He told himself that it was because the boggart had proven more difficult than he had thought to wrestle into his case, but truly he was just stalling. Had it been any other student, Remus would have dreaded exposing them to the most traumatic memory of their life, to be certain. But this wasn’t just any other student. This was Harry, this was James and Lily’s son, and the thought of causing this boy any more pain made Remus sick to his stomach.

 

He paused for a moment before the door to the History of Magic classroom and took a deep breath. He would be right there, he reassured himself. He would be watching Harry closely. Nothing would go wrong. He would end it the moment he sensed it was too much for the boy.

 

He pushed the door open. 

 

Harry glanced up, shoving his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. He had already lit all the lanterns and didn’t appear to have been waiting all that long when Remus walked in. Remus smiled and nodded at him and went to place his case on Binns’s desk, where it gave a threatening rattle. 

 

“What’s that?” asked Harry, shifting in his seat.

 

Remus tugged off his cloak and draped it over the teacher’s chair that Binns hadn’t used since he died. “Another boggart. I’ve been combing the castle ever since Tuesday, and very luckily, I found this one lurking inside Mr. Filch’s cabinet. It’s the nearest we’ll get to a real dementor.” Remus avoided Harry’s eyes, trying not to feel guilty, reminding himself that Harry had asked for these lessons, begged for them, even, and that Remus wasn’t a horrible person for taking advantage of the boy’s greatest fear. “The boggart will turn into a dementor when he sees you, so we’ll be able to practice on him. I can store him in my office when we’re not using him; there’s a cupboard under my desk he’ll like.”

 

A brief moment of fear flashed across Harry’s face, but Remus watched as the boy swallowed it back and affected nonchalance as he stood up. “Okay.”

 

Now that Harry was standing, Remus drew his wand and waved his hand at Harry, who followed suit, gripping the thin strip of wood tightly. “So, the spell I am going to try and teach you is highly advanced magic, Harry. Well beyond Ordinary Wizarding Level. It is called the Patronus Charm.”

 

Harry nodded, as if committing the name to memory. “How does it work?”

 

“Well, when it works correctly, it conjures up a Patronus, which is a kind of… anti-dementor,” Remus said, struggling a bit with the definition. “A guardian that acts as a shield between you and the dementor.”

 

It occurred to him that the best way to get the point across to Harry would be to demonstrate, but Harry didn’t ask, and the old fear of discovery uncurled in Remus’s gut, so he didn’t offer. Instead, he said, “The Patronus is a kind of positive force, a projection of the very things that the dementor feeds upon -- hope, happiness, the desire to survive -- but it cannot feel despair, as real humans can, so the dementors can’t hurt it.”

 

Remus surveyed Harry’s determined face, and sighed. “But I must warn you, Harry, that the charm might be too advanced for you. Many qualified wizards have difficulty with it.”

 

Harry brushed off the concern. “What does a Patronus look like?”

 

No regard for his own safety… James made over. Remus shook the thought off. “Each one is unique to the wizard who conjures it.”

 

“And how do you conjure it?”

 

Remus sighed. Here went nothing, he supposed. “With an incantation, which will only work if you are concentrating, will all your might, on a single, very happy memory.”

 

He watched as Harry considered that, the boy’s green eyes casting absently around the room as he searched his memory. After a few moments, Harry squared his shoulders. “Right.” 

 

“The incantation is this,” started Remus, but then he hesitated. If the boy couldn’t do it… and he got hurt… 

 

But Harry was watching him expectantly, so Remus cleared his throat. “ _ Expecto patronum.” _

 

“ _ Expecto patronum,”  _ Harry whispered, staring at the tip of his own wand. “ _ Expecto patronum… expecto patronum…”  _

 

“Concentrating hard on your happy memory?” Remus prompted. 

 

“Oh -- yeah --  _ expecto patrono _ \-- no,  _ patronum _ \-- sorry --  _ expecto patronum, expecto patronum _ …” 

 

The tip of Harry’s wand glowed white for a moment, and then a few tendrils of silver blew out of the wood and hovered before the boy for a moment, nebulous, shapeless. 

 

“Did you see that?” Harry asked Remus, looking up at him with excitement and pride dancing in his eyes. “Something happened!”

 

Remus smiled at him. “Very good. Right, then -- ready to try it on a dementor?”

 

“Yes.” Harry moved to the middle of the room, tightening his grip on his wand and staring fixedly at the clasp of Remus’s case. Remus studied his face for another moment, then lifted the case open.

 

The dementor rose slowly, and the room went cold -- the lamplight flickered -- Remus was about to shout to Harry, but the boy shuddered and drew a deep breath. “ _ Expecto patronum! Expecto patronum, expecto patronum… expecto….” _

 

But Remus watched in horror as Harry’s eyes rolled back in his head and his knees gave out. The boy collapsed, shaking, and the dementor advanced on him -- 

 

“ _ Expecto patronum!”  _ Remus snapped, stepping forward. The silver wolf bounded from the tip of his wand and charged the dementor, herding it about and forcing it down into the case. Remus slammed the lid on it, and the lamps flickered back to life. 

 

He glanced at his Patronus, which was calmly watching him. “Go.”

 

The wolf bowed its head and disappeared. Remus darted to Harry’s side and knelt, calling the boy’s name.

 

With a start, Harry’s eyes flew open. He stared at the ceiling for a moment, and then his gaze flickered to Remus. Immediately, the boy sat up, flushing a dull red. “Sorry.”

 

“Are you all right?” Remus demanded. 

 

“Yes,” said Harry, brushing off the concern and using a nearby desk to pull himself upright, still refusing to look at Remus. 

 

Remus dug a Chocolate Frog out of his pocket and handed it to Harry. “Here. Eat this before we try again,” he ordered. “I didn’t expect you to do it your first time. In fact, I would have been astounded if you had.”

 

Slowly, Harry unwrapped the Frog and began to eat it. “It’s getting worse,” he mumbled around a mouthful of chocolate. “I could hear her louder that time. And him. Voldemort.”

 

Remus felt himself go pale, felt the air in his lungs go solid. The anguish, the pain swirled in his gut, as did the shame and the jealousy -- to hear Lily one more time… 

 

He shook himself. How dare he. 

 

“Harry, if you don’t want to continue, I will more than understand --”

 

“I do!” Harry cut Remus off, cramming the rest of the chocolate into his mouth. “I’ve got to! What if the dementors turn up at our match against Ravenclaw? I can’t afford to fall off again! If we lose this game we’ve lost the Quidditch Cup!”

 

They stared each other down for a moment, Remus watching the determination glint in Harry’s eyes. Then Remus sighed. “All right then.” He cleared his throat. “You might want to select another memory, a happy memory, I mean, to concentrate on. That one doesn’t seem to have been strong enough.”

 

Harry paced around in a small circle once, brow furrowed as he stared down at the ground, before he tightened his grip on his wand and silently moving back into position in front of the case. “Ready?” asked Remus quietly.

 

“Ready,” Harry replied.

 

“Go!” Remus shouted as he opened the box again. Once more the room went dark and cold, and the foul creature advanced on Harry, reaching for him --

 

“ _ Expecto patronum!” _ Harry shouted furiously. “ _ Expecto patronum, expecto pat-- patronum… _ ”

 

He staggered back, colliding with one of the student desks before he fell again, twitching, eyes closed. 

 

“Shit,” Remus murmured, raising his own wand. “ _ Expecto patronum!” _

 

Again, the wolf appeared and forced the boggart back into the case, but Remus barely spared it a glance before he knelt down at Harry’s side and put a hand to the boy’s clammy face. “Harry!”

 

Harry didn’t respond. Remus gritted his teeth and, as gently as he could, slapped the boy’s temple. “Harry, wake up…”

 

Harry groaned, and his eyes screwed up before they opened. Remus’s heart leapt into his throat when he saw the tears glisten in Harry’s eyes. Before he could ask, Harry shook his head and took a deep breath. 

 

“I heard my dad.” His voice was quiet, thin. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard him… he tried to take on Voldemort himself, to give my mum time to run for it…” 

 

Harry hunched over, wiping his face on his sleeve, so he didn’t notice that Remus had stopped breathing. James.  _ James _ … 

 

_ “Nothing happens to her,” James snarled at Dumbledore, pointing at Lily, who had one hand constantly rubbing over her rounded stomach, where she was carrying the baby high and proud. “I don’t give a damn what you have to do, Albus. But nothing happens to her. To either of them.” _

 

“You… heard James?” Remus choked out before he could stop himself. 

 

Harry looked up, eyes wide, amazed. “Yeah. Why? You didn’t… know my dad, did you?”

 

Remus swallowed hard. The words built up, pressed against the back of his throat, years of memories and promises and hopes and dreams -- things that Harry should have grown up knowing, that he should have believed in as strongly as he knew that the sun would rise in the morning. 

 

But Remus couldn’t tell him. Harry was still staring at him, waiting for him to speak.

 

“I -- I did, as a matter of fact,” Remus said, faintly, sitting back on his heels. “We were friends at Hogwarts.” He brushed the pain aside, dragging himself back into the present. He would deal with this later. “Listen, Harry, perhaps we should leave it here for tonight. This charm is ridiculously advanced -- I shouldn't have suggested putting you through this…” 

 

“No!” said Harry, gripping the edge of a desk and dragging himself upright, shaking his hair out of his eyes as he did so. “I’ll have one more go! I’m not thinking of happy enough things, that’s what it is. Hang on…” 

 

As he paced again, a stone sunk into Remus’s gut, because in that moment, Harry didn’t look like James, but like Sirius -- rigidly compartmentalizing his emotions, calling forth only the feelings that were useful to him and shoving the rest away, employing a talent that had gotten him through a childhood that Remus never wanted to think about.

 

Sirius had been better at Patronuses than the rest of them.

 

When Harry moved to stand before the case again, his wand raised to chest height and his face set, Remus swallowed hard. “Ready?” he asked, his voice hoarse. “Concentrating hard?” When Harry nodded, Remus tightened his hold on the case’s handle. “All right --  _ go _ !”

 

For the third time, the dementor rose from the case, sucking all the light and warmth from the room, but this time, Harry straightened his back and shouted the incantation. “ _ EXPECTO PATRONUM!” _

 

The dementor halted, confused.

 

_ “EXPECTO PATRONUM! EXPECTO PATRONUM _ !”

 

And then, just as Remus began to fear that Harry would collapse again, it happened. A cloud of silver burst from the tip of Harry’s wand, illuminating his chalky face, and hovered there, between the boy and the monster. The dementor tried to move forward, to pass through it, but it couldn’t get by… 

 

Remus saw Harry’s fingers grip at the edge of a desk and he leapt forward.  _ “Riddikulus! _ ” he shouted, and with a crack the dementor disappeared. The full moon hung still and silent in the middle of the room, and Remus waved his wand once more to banish it. Harry’s Patronus faded away, and the boy sank down into a chair, shaking slightly, and braced his elbows on his knees.

 

Remus felt as if he would burst with pride. A broad grin stretched his face as he strode to the boy. “Excellent! Excellent, Harry! That was definitely a start!”

 

Harry looked up at Remus, pale but still resolute. “Can we have another go?” he begged. “Just one more go?”

 

“Not now.” Remus wasn’t going to budge this time. “You’ve had enough for tonight. Here.” He handed Harry the bar of Honeyduke’s best he’d had in his pocket. “Eat the lot, or Madam Pomfrey will be after my blood. Same time next week?”

 

Harry nodded and opened the chocolate wrapper. “Okay.” He kept his seat as Remus set about extinguishing the lamps, and Remus thought that the boy was resting, but suddenly Harry spoke again. “Professor Lupin?” When Remus hummed to indicate that he was listening, Harry seemed to be chewing on his words a bit. Then he said, slowly, “If you knew my dad, you must have known Sirius Black as well.”

 

The words hit Remus in the back, tiny sharp little pebbles, and he spun quickly on his heel. Harry was looking up at him, innocent, curious, and Remus forced himself to regulate his breathing. “What gives you that idea?” he asked, his voice sharper than he would have liked. If word had gotten out somehow about what he had said to Minerva and Flitwick about how Sirius may have been innocent… 

 

Harry’s eyes widened as he stammered, “Nothing -- I mean, I just knew they were friends at Hogwarts too…” 

 

Remus relaxed, and he cleared his throat, reminding himself that it would do the boy more harm than good to know that there was a possibility that Sirius was innocent, if Remus couldn’t prove it. “Yes, I knew him. Or I thought I did. You’d better be off, Harry. It’s getting late.”

 

Harry folded down the wrapper over the bit of the chocolate bar he hadn’t finished yet and stood. He nodded for Remus before he slipped out the door, and Remus watched him go. 

 

***

 

After the Quidditch match between Slytherin and Ravenclaw, the mood in the extra OWL sessions returned almost to normal. Remus noted with a wry smile that the moods of the Quidditch players in the room, and their attitudes towards each other, was always directly correlated with how the season was going. It was nice, in a way, to know that some things never really changed.

 

But because both Gryffindor and Slytherin all had to go undefeated to earn spots in the Quidditch Cup, both Marcus Flint and Oliver Wood had increased practices so much that the fifth-year players were starting to miss sessions. Remus wasn’t worried about them missing the content of the classes, but he was worried about their energy levels, and one evening he held back Angelina, Alicia, the Weasley twins, and Graham Montague and Miles Bletchley.

 

“Are you all doing all right?” he asked them, as they stood in a loose half circle around where he was perched on the edge of his desk.

 

Graham and Alicia glanced at each other, but it was Fred Weasley who shrugged and answered. “Sir, Quidditch is important to all of us. We’re not taking on anything we don’t think we can handle.”

 

Nobody disagreed with him, so Remus shrugged. “All right. I’ll just repeat what I’ve told you all from the beginning -- this isn’t mandatory. None of you have to be at these sessions.”

 

They all nodded, and the Slytherins wished Remus a good night before heading for the door. The twins followed suit, but Angelina and Alicia hung back. 

 

Remus looked between them. “Ladies?”

 

“Sir, we just…” Alicia glanced at Angelina, then back to Remus. “In our last Astronomy study group, Cedric told us…. I mean, sir, are you… he said he’d talked to you, and…” She shot a pleading look at Angelina.

 

“Are you all right, sir?” asked Angelina.

 

Remus sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’m fine, Angelina. Thank you for your concern.”

 

“We’re sorry!” burst out Alicia. “Cedric wasn’t supposed to… sir, we’d never tell anybody. We don’t care. It doesn’t matter.” Angelina nodded fervently.

 

A lump formed in Remus’s throat, and a suspicious prickling started at the back of his eyes. He coughed once, then smiled up at the two of them. “Thank you.”

 

Alicia smiled, breathless and relieved, and Angelina gently slapped her friend’s elbow before saying, “You’re welcome. Good night, sir.”

 

“Good night.” He stood and watched them leave. As the door shut behind them, he exhaled heavily and traced a finger along the wood grain of his desk. It had never been like this for him, not ever. And maybe… if it kept up…. He’d be able to stay at Hogwarts longer than one year.

 

*** 

 

Minerva and Flitwick didn’t ask Remus back to continue the inspection of Harry’s Firebolt. He wasn’t really surprised, and had made it a new habit to avoid Flitwick’s suspicious gaze when they passed each other in the halls. Remus ignored it -- or more accurately, he didn’t have time to worry about it.

 

The start of the new term meant that the OWL and NEWT exams were drawing ever closer, so he had more students appearing in his classroom for extracurricular help. Although career counseling was left to the Heads of House, Remus was surprised to hear his advice asked as to career options on more than one occasion. These extra impromptu interactions, combined with his review sessions with the fifth years and his Patronus lessons with Harry, meant that February was upon him before he realized it.

 

Harry was frustrated with himself, Remus knew. The boy’s Patronus had yet to take on a true form and still hovered, misty and indistinct, between Harry and the boggart even after over a month of lessons. And Harry insisted on being disappointed in himself, no matter how hard Remus tried to make him see what an incredible accomplishment it was that Harry could conjure any kind of Patronus at all. 

 

“You’re expecting too much of yourself,” he scolded. “For a thirteen-year-old wizard, even an indistinct Patronus is a huge accomplishment. You aren’t passing out anymore, are you?”

 

Harry scowled. “I thought a Patronus would -- charge the dementors down or something. Make them disappear.”

 

Remus shrugged. “The true Patronus does do that, but you’ve achieved a great deal in a very short space of time. If the dementors put in an appearance at your next Quidditch match, you will be able to keep them at bay long enough to get on the ground.”

 

Harry’s hand formed a fist, and he tapped his knuckles along the edge of a nearby desk, not meeting Remus’s eyes. “You said it’s harder if there are loads of them.”

 

Remus smiled at him and told as much of the truth as he was able. “I have complete confidence in you.”

 

And it was true. Harry clearly had more talent, more untapped magical power, than anyone had ever given him credit for, including the boy himself. If someone would just give him the tools he needed to have faith in himself… 

 

Remus shook himself and studied the boy’s downcast face. “Here -- you’ve earned a drink.” He moved back to his case and pulled out the two bottles he’d stashed there from the last time he had gone to see Rosmerta. He’d decided to pick it up after overhearing Minerva say that Harry’s ban from Hogsmeade had stood. “Something from the Three Broomsticks -- You won’t have tried it before.”

 

But Harry’s eyes lit up in recognition. “Butterbeer! Yeah, I like that stuff.”

 

Remus, pulled up short, raised an eyebrow.

 

“R-Ron and Hermione brought me some back from Hogsmeade,” Harry stammered, flushing a dull red. 

 

“I see,” said Remus, forcing himself to hide his smile as well as to ask about the current location of James’s Invisibility Cloak. “Well -- let’s drink to a Gryffindor victory against Ravenclaw!” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he closed his eyes and swore silently. “Not that I’m supposed to take sides, as a teacher.”

 

Harry hid his smile in the rim of his bottle, and they sat in a comfortable silence for a few moments. Then, as Remus had noticed that Harry had a habit of doing, the boy set his bottle down and asked an abrupt question.

 

“What’s under a dementor’s hood?”

 

Remus lowered his own bottle and considered the boy. On the one hand, the answer was truly horrifying, but on the other hand… Harry had asked for protection from dementors because he needed it. With that objective truth in mind, Remus decided that Harry had a right to be as informed as he wanted to be. “Well… the only people who really know are in no condition to tell us. You see, the dementor lowers its hood only to use its last and worst weapon.”

 

Harry tilted his head. “What’s that?”

 

“They call it the Dementor’s Kiss. It’s what dementors do to those they wish to destroy utterly. I suppose there must be some kind of mouth under there, because they clamp their jaws upon the mouth of the victim and… and suck out his soul.”

 

Harry choked on the mouthful of butterbeer he’d just taken. “What?” he sputtered. “They kill --”

 

“Oh no,” Remus cut him off. “Much worse than that. You can exist without your soul, you know, as long as your brain and heart are still working. But you’ll have no sense of self anymore, no memory, no…” he gestured vaguely with his hand. “No anything. There’s no chance at all of recovery. You’ll just -- exist. As an empty shell. And your soul is gone forever… lost.”

 

Harry stared at Remus, horrorstruck. Remus had to look away. Quietly, he gave voice to the information he had been trying to put out of his mind since he had learned it. “It’s the fate that awaits Sirius Black. It was in the  _ Daily Prophet _ this morning. The Ministry has given the dementors permission to perform it if they find him.”

 

_ “Christ -- Padfoot,” Remus panted, his Patronus trotting back from where it had chased the dementors off. Remus knelt down beside Sirius, who was huddled on the forest floor against the trunk of a tree. “Sirius! Talk to me.” _

 

_ “‘M fine,” Sirius stammered, but his face was chalk white and his breathing was choppy as he stared around wildly, his eyes unable to fix on anything. “Are they -- are they --” _

 

_ “They’re gone, Padfoot,” Remus reassured him, reaching out a hand to hold Sirius’s shoulder. “They’re gone. It’s okay.” _

 

_ Sirius’s breathing began to slow as his eyes finally met Remus’s, and then Sirius buried his face in his hands. “Shit, Moony, I’m so sorry. I was useless.” _

 

_ “Hey --” _

 

_ “I’m better at Patronuses than that!” Sirius burst out, dropping his hands and balling them into fists. “I know I am! I don’t know what happened! I just -- they --” _

 

_ “Sirius, it’s fine.” Remus slid his hand around so that he was gripping the back of Sirius’s neck. “Everyone has bad days. And we’re both all right. It’s fine, I promise.” _

 

“He deserves it,” said Harry, suddenly.

 

Remus studied the hard fire in the boy’s eyes -- Lily’s eyes -- and swallowed down the bile in his throat. “You think so? Do you really think anyone deserves that?”

 

Harry stuck his chin out. “Yes! For… for some things.”

 

He faltered, and Remus wondered exactly how much Harry knew about what everyone thought had happened twelve years ago.

 

But they were both quiet as they finished their butterbeers, and when Harry stood, and quietly thanked Remus for the drink and the lesson, Remus nodded at him and watched him go. 

 

When the door clicked shut behind Harry, Remus tilted his head back against the back of his chair and let his eyes drift shut. He really shouldn’t be surprised, he realized. If Harry thought that Sirius was responsible for Lily and James’s deaths, then Harry would want Sirius worse than dead. Anyone who had loved Lily and James would want Sirius worse than dead. 

 

Sirius, the old Sirius, the Sirius who had grown up with Remus, would want the person responsible for Lily and James’s deaths worse than dead.

 

Remus sighed and set down his own empty bottle. The Sirius he had known loved James like a brother, had promised to protect Lily with his life, was loyal to the point of recklessness to his friends, and had looked happier than Remus had ever seen him when baby Harry had been placed in his arms. That Sirius had also been blunt, transparent, the kind of person who would never have made it as a double agent simply because he didn’t have the patience to tell the same lie for an extended period of time.

 

That Sirius would never have sold out Lily and James. He would have been unable to do it, in the strictest version of the term.

 

But if that hadn’t been who Sirius really was, if Sirius had really been playing them for years before he sent James and Lily to their deaths, if he had killed Peter when Peter tried to confront him… then Harry was right. Sirius did deserve the Dementor’s Kiss.


	13. Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw

“I hope you don’t teach a morning class tomorrow, Professor,” said Rosmerta, raising an amused eyebrow at Remus while she replaced the empty glass before him with a fresh pint.

 

Remus summoned a smile for her before cupping his hand around the glass she slid towards him. As it happened, he had his Gryffindor first years at nine the following morning, but he was counting on a few gulps of water, a Glamour charm, and the fact that they were eleven years old and wouldn’t recognize a hangover to get him through.

 

Rosmerta took a moment to refresh the glasses of the group of warlocks further down the bar before returning to Remus and bracing her hands on the bartop in the way he was now so familiar with. “What’s wrong?”

 

He shrugged. “Nothing’s wrong.”

 

“Brilliant, now you’re lying to me. I’ll cut you off, Remus, I swear I will.”

 

Remus grimaced. “Fine, don’t cut me off. I just.” He paused, rolling the words around in his mouth. “I’m giving Harry private lessons now, did I tell you?”

 

Rosmerta raised her eyebrows. “What, like remedial?”

 

“God, no,” Remus snorted. “Can you imagine? Lily Evan’s son needing remedial Defense Against the Dark Arts?”

 

Rosmerta waited.

 

“No, he asked me… he wants to be able to defend himself against dementors,” Remus muttered, tracing a finger through the ring of water that the condensation from his glass had left on the bartop. “He asked me to teach him how to summon a Patronus.”

 

“Remus…” Rosmerta leaned back a bit. “Can he handle it? He’s just a kid, isn’t he? A third year?”

 

“Managed an incorporeal on our first lesson,” Remus told her proudly, feeling the smile twitch up the corners of his mouth. Off her impressed murmur, he added, “He expects too much of himself. Thinks he should already have a corporeal ready to go. But he’s a kid, Rosmerta. I don’t expect him to manage that. Even if…”

 

“Even if what?”

 

“Even if Dumbledore won’t do his job and protect the boy.” The words tumbled out of Remus in a rush. “He’s got… he put the boy in a position to protect the Philosopher’s Stone all on his own -- him and two other bloody eleven-year-olds. Dumbledore didn’t shut down the school when there was a great bloody snake roaming around it, and it became Harry’s job to kill the damn thing.” He stared up at Rosmerta through bleary eyes. “Who does that? Who puts a child under their protection in that position?”

 

Dimly, he was aware of Rosmerta glancing around to ensure that nobody was close enough to overhear them. Remus almost didn’t care if someone did hear him -- maybe it was time that they all took Dumbledore off his pedestal and had him answer some bloody questions.

 

“Questions like what?” Rosmerta asked, voice heavy with apprehension, before Remus realized he’d spoken aloud.

 

He glared into the amber liquid in his glass. “Crouch said… he said he was relying on Dumbledore to be as committed to justice as he was twelve years ago.”

 

“We’re back to this --”

 

“That means no trial!” Remus burst out, squinting up at her. “Dumbledore was head of the High Court -- he still is -- he has been for almost twenty years now. He agreed with Crouch that Sirius shouldn’t have a trial!”

 

Rosmerta stared at him and asked slowly, “Where is this coming from?”

 

Remus heaved a great sigh. “I don’t know. I don’t -- I spent _so long_ trying not to think about any of this, Rosmerta, but now it’s all here, it’s all back, and it doesn’t make _any fucking sense!_ ”

 

He was nearly shouting by the end, and Rosmerta dropped the towel in her hand and wrapped her fingers around his wrist. “Come,” she hissed, dragging him along the bar and through the door of the small office in the corner. She slammed and locked the door behind them before shoving Remus down into the rickety chair behind the desk that overflowed with papers. She jabbed her wand into the dusty lamp that hung from the ceiling, and the pale yellow light washed her face of all color.

 

“Listen to me,” she hissed, the shadows dancing across her features. “I had the Minister of Magic and half the Hogwarts faculty in here over Christmas, Remus. And do you know what they told me? That Sirius sold out James and Lily. How _dare_ you sit there and say that he doesn’t deserve everything that’s happened to him? He killed your three best friends!”

 

Remus gripped the arms of the chair. “You don’t know that. You don’t know anything.”

 

“Fine.” She leaned back and folded her arms. “Maybe I don’t. Maybe you knew Sirius Black better than I ever did. I’m not going to fight you on that. But you’re my friend and I care about you, and I need you to think about what you’re doing -- running your mouth in a pub about how Sirius Black, your friend from school Sirius Black, suffered some great injustice --”

 

“But --”

 

“Play the tape to the end, Remus!” she snapped at him. “You know how this story goes! You saw it play out often enough! You remember what it was like under Crouch -- Daniel Rookwood, who’d never broken a law in his life, who hadn’t seen his son since his wife took custody after the divorce, was thrown into Azkaban along with him after Karkaroff named Augustus Rookwood as a Death Eater! Leah Jugson, forced out of her shop just because a cousin she’d never met was a You-Know-Who sympathizer! Augusta Longbottom and her family very nearly lost everything because her sister’s first husband had expressed some sympathy with You-Know-Who before he started killing.”

 

She glared. Remus didn’t answer. “Now, they say Amelia Bones is a good woman, and maybe she is,” Rosmerta went on, “but what do you think they’d do to you if they found out that you were his best friend, and that you’re trying to convince people of his innocence. All this to say nothing of the fact that you work at Hogwarts, and he’s broken in once already.”

 

“I’m not helping him,” Remus muttered mutinously, forcing himself to hold on to the fact that not revealing how Sirius was probably getting into the castle was not the same thing as proactively providing assistance.

 

“I didn’t say you were!” Rosmerta threw her hands up in exasperation. “But you need to realize -- look, Remus, I’ve lived longer than you, I’ve seen more than you have, and I know that now is not the time to start asking questions that you may not even want the answers to anyway.”

 

They stared each other down for a beat, Remus meeting her unflinching blue eyes. Then he sighed, dragging a hand down his face, and the tension in the room broke.

 

“I know he was your friend,” Rosmerta said, her voice much softer now. “And I know that I can’t even imagine how hard these last few months have been for you… but Remus, really. Is it worth it? Is he worth getting yourself sent to Azkaban for?”

 

_“Bloody hell,” Sirius grunted, viciously scratching something out on the parchment in front of him, the shadows from the dying fire darkening the circles under his eyes even further._

 

_Remus glanced over at him from his study guide. “Charms got you stuck again?”_

 

_“What? No,” Sirius muttered, distracted, without looking up from the notes in front of him. “I could give a shit about OWLs, Remus.”_

 

_Remus frowned at him. “What, then? The exams are only a couple of months away.”_

 

_“It’s this… fucking Animagus transformation.” Sirius glared at the pages spread across his end of the table. “We keep fucking up on brewing the potion, and I can’t figure out what’s wrong.”_

 

_Something warm spread through Remus’s gut even as he cleared his throat. “Sirius, you don’t have to worry about it. There are more important things…”_

 

_Sirius shook his head without looking up. “No there aren’t.”_

 

Rosmerta stared at Remus, but he didn’t respond to her immediately. Instead, he forced himself to stand and smile tiredly at her. “Thanks.You’re right.”

 

She raised her eyebrows. “I am?”

 

“You usually are. Don’t act surprised.” He stretched, rolling his head around on his neck. “Any chance I can trouble you for some Floo powder?”

 

Rosmerta studied him for another moment, then smiled back at him before pointing her wand at the empty hearth. A fire crackled up, and she nodded at the jar tucked away on the mantle. “I’m just trying to look out for you, Remus.”

 

“I know you are,” he assured her, taking a pinch of the powder even as his skin crawled with the desire to remove himself from this conversation as quickly as possible. “You were right. I’ll be more careful in the future.”

 

She reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder, even as he inched towards the flames. “Of course. I’m always here if you want to talk. You know that, right?”

 

He nodded again. “Thank you,” he murmured, before tossing the powder into the hearth and stepping into the green flames. He saw concern flash across her face again as he said, “Defense classroom, Hogwarts,” but the fire whisked him away before he had to speak to her again.

 

He sighed in relief as he stepped out of his own hearth and into his dark office. He was walking a dangerous line, he reminded himself. He had to be more careful with what he said and who he said it to.

 

***

 

The students talked of nothing but the upcoming match between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw for the next week. Remus heard Harry’s analysis widely echoed through the halls -- because Slytherin had defeated Ravenclaw, all that Gryffindor had to do was beat Ravenclaw in order to still have a shot at the Quidditch cup. Conversely, Ravenclaw just had to win narrowly to knock Hufflepuff out of the running for the cup.

 

Harry had gone quiet in class, and it seemed to Remus that the boy was feeling the weight of dozens of eyes on himself, knowing that everyone would say it was Harry’s fault if Gryffindor lost again. He threw all of himself into every single one of his Patronus lessons with Remus, to the point that his incorporeal Patronus was actually losing some of its substance.

 

“Enough,” Remus finally said firmly, pointing his wand at the boggart and wordlessly directing it back into his case while Harry slid, panting, into one of the desks. Slowly, Remus approached the boy where he had hunched over. “Talk to me.”

 

Harry took a few deep breaths, still glaring angrily at the ground even as sweat glistened on his forehead. “We can’t lose!” he burst out, finally, his head snapping up and his angry green eyes finding Remus’s. “If we lose, it’ll be my fault! I already messed this season up for us!”

 

Remus sank into the seat beside Harry’s and mulled over how to respond while the boy scowled out at the inky black sky through the window. “It’s… never your fault,” he began slowly, “that you react visibly to trauma.”

 

Harry sat in silence for another moment, then shrugged, standing. “I think I can go again. One more time.”

 

Remus studied him and sighed. “All right. One more time.”

 

***

 

_“All right,” Lily snapped, dropping into the seat beside Remus at the front of Slughorn’s classroom. “What happened?”_

 

_“What do you mean?” Remus asked her without looking up from where his wand was prodding at the flame under his cauldron._

 

_Her shoulder nudged his roughly. “You know what I mean. You and Black. Why’ve you stopped speaking?”_

 

_“Why do you care?” he bit out, before remembering that this was Lily, and she only ever wanted to help. When Lily silently raised a delicate eyebrow at him, he took a deep breath. “I’m not his keeper, Lily.”_

 

_“I never said you were. In fact -- and you’d know this as well as I would -- he hasn’t gotten into a bit of trouble in the last few weeks. He’s barely said a word. To anyone.”_

 

_At the same time, they glanced towards the back of the classroom. Sirius was sitting with his eyes cast down. To his left, James was slamming his books down onto the table and unpacking his potions ingredients, a scowl on his face, while Peter tried his best to look busy._

 

_“It makes me nervous,” Lily went on. “All right, not nervous so much as… uncomfortable. Since when do you two not speak? He can fuck up as many times as he wants, and you’ve always got his back. You’ve all always got each others’s backs.” She studied Remus again, concern growing in her eyes. “Remus… what did he do?”_

 

_The memory of Snape’s blanched, terrified face disappearing in the shadows of the tunnel beneath the Shrieking Shack floated before Remus’s eyes, the sounds of his own snarls echoing. He shrugged it off. “Nothing, Lily. Don’t worry about it.”_

 

When he ended his last lesson before the Gryffindor/Ravenclaw match, Remus quietly watched his students pack away their things. Harry hadn’t emerged from the silence into which he’d slowly descended as the game got closer, but Ron was loud and boisterous, joking with Dean and Seamus, nearly vibrating with anticipation. On the other side of the room, Hermione zipped up her bookbag, her movements small and contained. Neville asked her a question, and she answered it, her voice low, but she left the room alone.

 

Remus sighed, knowing that there was nothing he could do, even if he wanted to.

 

***

 

Breakfast on the morning of the match was a bit of a spectacle.

 

The Gryffindor third-year boys all entered the Great Hall together, Harry at their center, his new Firebolt hoisted over his shoulder. For a moment, before he remembered, Remus smiled at the thought of what Sirius would say.

 

Beside Remus, Minerva huffed in exasperation as she watched the chatter break out as Oliver Wood laid Harry’s broom out in the center of the Gryffindor table. “I still wish we knew why someone sent it to him.”

 

Remus said nothing. Heavy between them was the knowledge that Sirius had sent it, of course he had, but that he had done nothing to tamper with it. It was just… a gift. But Remus, remembering his conversation with Rosmerta, knew better than to comment.

 

Cedric headed over to where Harry was sitting with his own team and traded a few moments of what looked like polite conversation, and Remus again had to marvel at him. Cedric had never again raised the topic of Remus’s monthly absences, and Remus was almost certain that he had Cedric to thank for none of his other students mentioning it either. The boy was a natural leader because something about his innate kindness inspired respect. He was, Remus thought, the kind of leader that men like Amos Diggory and Orion Black aspired to be.

 

Minerva wiped her mouth with a napkin and pushed her chair away from the table. “Shall we head down to the pitch?”

 

Grinning, Remus stood with her. No other faculty were ready yet, including Filius Flitwick. But then Minerva McGonagall had never been one to let anyone forget that she herself had captained a Quidditch team to two Cup wins in a row.

 

_“Potter,” said Professor McGonagall, looking sternly over her square spectacles. “We should discuss your training schedule.”_

 

_James ran a hand through his hair. “Professor, I know it’s keeping us all busy, but we have to beat Slytherin by at least seventy points to have a shot at the Cup, and --”_

 

_“That’s what I mean,” she cut him off. “You can’t have training two evenings in a row. You’re not allowing your players enough time to rest.”_

 

_Taken aback, James raised his eyebrows. From where they were hanging about waiting for him in the back of the classroom, Peter snorted and Sirius dug his elbow into Remus’s side. “What… would you recommend, Professor?” James asked slowly._

 

_Primly, McGonagall rearranged the quills in the jar on top of her desk. “Train for longer sessions, but only three times a week. It builds endurance without leading to exhaustion.”_

 

_James nodded slowly. “That… makes a lot of sense, Professor. Thank you.”_

 

_“Hmm.” McGonagall rested her fingertips on the edge of her desk. “It’s been four years without a Quidditch Cup for Gryffindor, Potter. Julia Baker believed that you could get us one when she graduated, and I’m trusting her judgement. I don’t like being proven wrong.”_

 

_James grinned and hitched his bag higher on his shoulder. “Yes, ma’am.”_

 

_“Very well.” McGonagall jerked her chin at him, and with a final salute, James spun and headed for where his friends were clustered around the door. McGonagall turned her stern gaze onto them as well. “Hurry along, you lot.”_

 

_“Yes, Professor,” they chorused, and with James at their center, they piled out into the corridor._

 

The weather couldn't have been more different from the last time that the Gryffindor team had played. Remus inhaled the cool, clean air and squinted up at the sunlight, periodically obscured as light, fluffy clouds scudded across it. As he and Minerva strode down the lawn towards the pitch, he couldn't help but glance towards the distant gates. Just barely, he could make out the cloaked and hooded figures, rippling in the breeze.

 

“They won’t come into the grounds again, Remus.”

 

He startled and turned to see that Minerva had followed his gaze and now was studying him. “Dumbledore had words with Fudge and Amelia Bones. He went as far as to threaten to resign from the Wizengamot.”

 

Remus only nodded. He had seen Harry collapse while standing on solid ground in a classroom, and that had been bad enough. The thought of the boy plunging fifty feet through thin air…

 

They reached the pitch and climbed into the otherwise empty staff box. When Minerva took her seat near the commentator’s post -- she still took on the unofficial responsibility of keeping Lee Jordan in line -- and wrapped her cloak around herself, Remus was slow to take the spot beside her. She looked up at him curiously, and he wandered to the edge of the box.

 

Remus surveyed the pitch. The grass glistened green and smooth, and sunlight glinted off the goal posts. The wood of the box was rough under his hands.

 

“Remus?”

 

He weighed his thoughts for a moment, then spoke without turning around to face her. “Minerva, the last weekend of fall term… were you part of a group of teachers that went with Fudge to the Three Broomsticks?”

 

There was a beat of silence. Then, slowly, she said, “I was.”

 

He took a deep breath, still staring unseeingly over the stadium. “Did you… what did you tell Rosmerta about them? About James and Sirius?”

 

After another moment of silence so still it shivered in the air around them, Minerva sighed. “We were less discreet than we could have been, to be sure. I have no defense, Remus. I apologize.”

 

Remus opened his mouth to say that her apology wasn’t good enough, that she had no right to discuss Sirius with anyone, she had no right to call him a traitor, not when they didn’t know, not when Remus, who knew Sirius better than anyone else alive, couldn’t even bring himself to believe it anymore --

 

But before any of those words could bubble forth from the anger churning in his gut, the door to the stairwell opened and Flitwick walked into the box, followed by Pomona Sprout and Aurora Sinistra. Remus snapped his jaw shut and stared fixedly at the stands on the other side of the pitch.

 

“Ah, Minerva!” squeaked Flitwick, making his way to Minerva and reaching out his hand to shake hers. “Nice day for it, eh?”

 

“To be sure, Filius,” Remus heard her respond, and he thought there was a note of distraction in her voice. “But I’ll have you know, Oliver has been working the team quite hard these last few weeks.”

 

“As has Roger,” Flitwick rejoined. “Well, regardless, the best team will win, I suppose.”

 

“Are you two quite finished?” drawled Pomona, and Remus heard the wooden slats of the box creak as more of the faculty filed in and began taking their seats. Remus clenched his fingers around the edge of the box for one more moment, then released it and turned back to his colleagues. He avoided Minerva’s worried eyes but still took the empty seat beside her.

 

Lee finally bounded in, a few minutes late as usual, and stepped up to his podium. Rolanda Hooch flew past the staff box and nodded at Lee, who then took up the magical megaphone to greet the crowd, which was rippling with waves of scarlet and indigo. “Good morning Hogwarts!” he bellowed, his voice echoing through the stadium. “And welcome to the fourth game of this Quidditch season! Let’s bring out the teams!”

 

The teams processed onto the field, and Remus could make out James’s shock of black hair on Harry’s head. The boy dropped his broom from where it had been hefted onto his shoulder and shifted his weight from foot to foot. Then Hooch blew the whistle, and they were off.

 

The game moved quickly, with Lee’s commentary frequently interspersed with his quoting the specifications of the Firebolt. Remus pretended to be much more intensely focused on the game than he really was, mostly so that he wouldn't be drawn into further conversation with Minerva.

 

Then, just as Harry pulled out of a dramatic dive almost certainly intended to distract the Ravenclaw Seeker, it happened. Three black hooded figures rippled their way across the field, stopping dead center and lifting their heads to stare up at Harry. Remus shot to his feet and gripped the edge of the box with one hand, his other hand gripping his wand.

 

But just as he was prepared to draw it, he hesitated -- those couldn’t be real dementors -- their movements were too staccato, they were taking steps instead of gliding --

 

But Harry, flying above all his teammates and opponents, couldn’t see that. As Remus watched, not breathing, the boy plunged his hand down the neck of his scarlet Quidditch robes, the robes with his name and his father’s name emblazoned across the back, drew his wand, and pointed it at the hooded figures. When he roared the words “ _Expecto patronum!_ ” Remus could hear the words carried on the breeze.

 

And it burst from Harry’s wand, fully formed, its antlers extended proudly, charging down that which threatened Harry at a full gallop…

 

_“Get down!” roared James, and Remus dove behind what remained of the wall, nursing the wrist he was certain was broken. James, gripping his broom with one hand, zoomed over the cluster of dementors, his wand held high. “Expecto patronum!”_

 

And Prongs’s ghost stormed the hooded figures as James’s son pivoted in midair, the hand still clutching his wand reaching out and grasping the Snitch. All the air left Remus’s body in a rush, and he felt himself sag against the wall of the box.

 

He barely heard Lee call the end of the match as he brushed past the other teachers and threw the door open. His feet pounded the wooden steps, down, down, down, and then he was there, finally, he burst out onto the grass of the pitch alongside waves of crimson-clad students.

 

He hadn’t heard Minerva behind him on the stairs, but then she was there at his side, sweeping off towards where what had been the three hooded figures were writhing on the ground. “Unacceptable!” she roared as Remus, with one last glance at where the seven Gryffindor players were caught up in a massive midair group hug, followed her. Marcus Flint, and three of his team members -- one of whom, Remus wasn’t surprised to see, was Lucius Malfoy’s son -- were trying to detangle themselves from what looked like great black lengths of fabric. It seems as if the Malfoy boy had been perched on the shoulders of one of the Beaters.

 

Remus felt himself begin to shake, and he clenched his fists and turned away. How dare they, he seethed silently, how _dare_ they try to take advantage of Harry’s reactions to trauma like that? What kind of spoiled, cosseted existence must they have had that they felt it necessary to mock Harry for having lived through hell?

 

He fixed his eyes on the bright red tangle of arms, legs, and broomsticks that was the Gryffindor team drifting slowly back to earth. The players were greeted by crowds of screaming students, with Ron Weasley yanking Harry’s hand in the air as they both shouted. Remus swallowed hard. Harry was fine -- he was _fine_ , he was clearly all right, he was surrounded by his friends. And yet. And yet…

 

Remus felt himself moving through the crowd until he was at Harry’s side. There were so many words, but the right ones wouldn’t come. “That was quite some Patronus,” he said, quietly.

 

Harry turned to him, beaming. “The dementors didn’t affect me at all! I didn’t feel a thing!”

 

It was as if a stone had settled into Remus’s gut. He knew without having to be told how much it would mean to Harry to know that he had James’s Patronus. The boy clutched desperately at any fragment of information about his parents, and this…

 

But Remus couldn’t. He had told Harry that each Patronus was unique to the wizard who conjured it, and Harry would ask why his Patronus -- James’s Patronus -- was a stag.

 

And as if that wasn’t enough, it still mattered to Remus that he had made a promise to Dumbledore.

 

So instead of telling the boy the truth, Remus found a smile for him. “That’s because they… weren’t dementors,” he said, nodding towards where he had left Minerva, Flint, and the others. “Come and see.”

 

Minerva was still yelling at the four boys, who had not yet managed to fully extract themselves from the mess of black robes. “An unworthy trick! A low and cowardly attempt to sabotage the Gryffindor Seeker! Detentions for all of you, and fifty points from Slytherin! I shall be speaking to Professor Dumbledore about this, make no mistake!”

 

At Remus’s side, Harry and Ron both burst into laughter. Just as Dumbledore approached their cluster, George Weasley made his way over to Harry. “Come on, Harry! Party Gryffindor common room! Now!”

 

Harry only spared one more quick grin for Remus before he was pulled along by the crowd with his teammates. Remus watched him go, feeling the smile die on his face. God, the boy looked so much like James….

 

Suddenly, Remus’s skin was itching with the desire to be anywhere but there. Avoiding Dumbledore’s gaze, he quickly made for the nearest exit to the pitch, and began the trek back to the castle, falling in behind some straggling and subdued Ravenclaw supporters.

 

When he climbed the steps to the entrance hall, his hands shoved into his pockets, he suddenly decided not to go back to his office. Instead, he wandered through the castle that was soaked in late afternoon sunlight. He avoided the west wing of the castle, and the noise he knew would come from the party in the Gryffindor common room. Eventually he found himself at the top of the Astronomy Tower, and he leaned onto the stone parapets, watching the sun sink behind the treetops of the Forbidden Forest. He realized on some level that he was cold, but it didn’t trouble him at the moment.

 

Harry had a right to know who James was. But Remus couldn’t tell the boy about the James he had known -- brave, selfless, innovative, fiercely loyal -- without exposing the worst part of himself. And he wasn’t ready for that, not yet.

 

And Harry had already asked Remus about Sirius once. Whatever Remus was beginning to believe about Sirius, he knew he wasn’t ready to answer any questions about him, especially if those questions came from Harry.

 

He stood there until the sky turned purple with the dusk, and eventually he shivered. Drawing his robes closer in around his shoulders, he made his way back inside. It wasn’t until he was back in his quarters that he realized he’d moved at all, and he wondered briefly how he had gotten there.

 

Remus remained lost in thought through the rest of the evening, and when he went to bed it was with a bruised, tender feeling throughout his chest. Out of nowhere, it occurred to him that Sirius would have been the first one to place a bet that Harry would have James’s Patronus.

 

***

 

He was awoken at three in the morning with a silver cat yowling into his ear.

 

He startled upright, blinking blearily at Minerva’s Patronus as it sat back on its heels and opened its mouth, speaking with its mistress’s voice. “ _All staff members are to come to the staffroom immediately_.”

 

Scrubbing his hand across his face, Remus pulled on a pair of trousers and a set of robes and, wand drawn, sped from his quarters. As he almost ran through the corridors, his heart in his throat, he realized that he knew. Sirius. Somehow, Sirius had gotten in again.

 

The low murmur of conversation that had filled the staffroom died almost as soon as Remus ended, and he swallowed hard. Avoiding the accusing gazes of more than a few of his colleagues, he slowly moved to stand near the wall. Harry had to be all right, he told himself. If something had happened to the boy, something more urgent than a staff summons would have occurred, surely. If nothing else, the Minister of Magic would be there.

 

Dumbledore, seated at the head of the table, surveyed Remus over his steepled fingertips. Instinctively, Remus avoided his gaze.

 

This time, it was Minerva who was the last to arrive. She did not spare a glance for Remus as she tightened the belt on her tartan bath robe and began to speak, her voice low and dangerous. “Tonight, that… _idiot_ Sir Cadogan let Sirius Black into the Gryffindor common room.”

 

Pomona gasped, and Derwent swore under his breath. Before he could stop himself, Remus asked, “Is Harry all right?”

 

Minerva glanced in his direction without meeting his eyes. “Potter is fine. From what I gather, Black made his way into the third-year boys’ dormitory. Ronald Weasley woke to find Black brandishing a knife at him. Mr. Weasley cried out, and Black ran.”

 

Remus frowned, but it was Aurora who asked the question. “He ran? Without hurting anyone?”

 

“We can deal with parsing a madman’s motives later, surely,” Snape cut in. “Minerva, are we to begin a full-scale search? Has the Ministry been informed?”

 

It was Dumbledore who responded. “They have. Amelia Bones and Rufus Scrimgeour, as well as a full complement of Aurors, are on their way. And to prevent any questions on the topic, the dementors will not be allowed into this castle to… assist in any way.”

 

“Sir,” began Derwent, his brow creasing, “certainly we should be doing everything we can to protect the students?”

 

Dumbledore stood. “Alexander, do not suggest that I place anything other than the highest value on my students’ safety,” he said, his quiet voice laced with the merest trace of anger. “All the Houses are on lockdown, with the ghosts and prefects, as well as Percy and Annabelle, keeping watch. Now, I would appreciate it if you would all, in pairs, begin a comprehensive search of the castle.”

 

All the teachers scattered, the low, tense hum of conversation slowly rising again. Remus made his way to Minerva, but she turned on her heel and moved away from him once they were back out in the corridor and the crowd of teachers began to disperse.

 

“Minerva --”

 

She spun on him, and he was shocked at the fury he saw rippling in her eyes. “Are you helping him?” she hissed.

 

Remus, taken aback, was unable to speak for a moment. “How could you ask me that?”

 

“You’ve been acting oddly for months, Remus. And if you don’t think I don’t remember how the four of you seemed to know the castle like the back of your hands…” She shook her head and glared at him. “Now, tell me the truth. Are you helping him?”

 

“I’m not!” Remus said, louder than he should have, and Aurora and Pomona glanced at them from the other end of the corridor. “I’m not,” he repeated, lowering his voice. “Minerva, if he did what we all think he did, then--”

 

“You see, there you go again!” she snapped, also keeping her voice down. “You keep talking about how he may not have done it? Well, he did, Remus. He did, and they’re all dead, and he laughed as he was arrested. He _laughed,_ Remus! Now he could have killed a boy tonight, one of _my_ students, but for the grace of God! Now I need you to rejoin us in reality and help us _find him!”_

 

They held each other’s stares for another moment before Remus nodded and swallowed hard. Without another word, Minerva turned on her heel and swept down the corridor in a rush of tartan, leaving Remus with no choice but to follow in her wake.

 

No, he hadn’t helped Sirius into the castle. But what he didn’t say to Minerva was that notorious mass murderer Sirius Black, who had finished off thirteen people with one curse, would have had no problem slitting Ronald Weasley’s throat and moving onto Harry, if that was what he had wanted to do.

 

But he hadn’t done that. Whatever Sirius had been trying to accomplish in the boys’ dormitory, it wasn’t killing Harry Potter.


	14. Snape's Grudge

“It’s just routine,” the Auror said coldly, sparing Remus one last glance over his shoulder before he crossed the threshold to the Charms classroom. The sharp snap of the door closing cracked through the room.

 

Remus snorted quietly and stood, wandering over to one of the dozens of small glass windows that ringed the circular room at the top of the North Tower. He wasn’t naive, and he was well aware that he was the only member of the Hogwarts faculty taken aside for private questioning.

 

The Auror who had gently gripped his elbow and led him away from the rest of the faculty was a blond man whom Remus thought was named Gawain Robards, a Slytherin prefect a few years ahead of Remus while at Hogwarts. He had been one of the faction of Slytherins who had shown no sympathy for Voldemort and his growing number of followers. 

 

For some reason, the thought brought Remus no comfort. 

 

He leaned his forehead against the cool glass of the window pane, his own breath fogging it as he looked out at the inky black night sky. Far down below on the ground, little square patches of light shimmered against the lawn. In the distance, Remus could barely make out the tree line of the Forbidden Forest. If Sirius was smart, Remus mused, he’d be hiding out there. Nobody would dare conduct an extensive enough search to find him. And even if they did, Sirius had the Marauders’ Map on him, Remus was sure. 

 

_ “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good,” Sirius mumbled distractedly, jabbing his wand at the sheet of parchment as he and the others huddled in the empty Transfiguration classroom. Remus, holding his lit wand aloft in the shadowy room, leaned in over Peter’s shoulder as they all frantically scanned the emerging lines and dots on the map. _

 

_ “There,” said James suddenly, pointing. A cluster of dots, labelled with the names of Rabastan Lestrange, Severus Snape, Theophilus Nott, Regulus Black, and Volturnus Flint, huddled at the very edge of the Forbidden Forest. “What d’you reckon they’re up to? In the forest this late at night?” _

 

_ Peter shrugged nervously. “How much would it help You-Know-Who if the centaurs or somebody decided to support him? Could that get him into the grounds somehow?” _

 

_ “Probably,” Remus muttered. “The centaurs know more about these grounds than all the humans put together.” _

 

_ Sirius swore under his breath before looking up at the rest of them with pleading eyes. “Regulus wouldn’t really be with them, would he? Maybe the map is making a mistake?” _

 

_ James reached out and grasped Sirius’s shoulder briefly. “The map doesn’t make mistakes, Pads. You know that. You helped write it.” _

 

The crack of the door opening caused Remus to turn, and he shoved his hands into his pockets and kept his face as blank as he could. Robards reentered, holding the door open for Rufus Scrimgeour and Amelia Bones. Bones studied Remus, her face expressionless, as Scrimgeour pointed his wand at the lamps fixed to the stone walls. Slowly, the pale light of the flickering flames washed over them all.

 

Finally, Bones broke the silence. “Sit, Remus, please.”

 

He hesitated for a moment, then moved slowly to one of the students’ desks in the middle of the room. To his surprise, Bones dragged one of the other desks around so that it was facing him and seated herself in it, folding her hands on the desktop. Robards and Scrimgeour, however, stayed standing. 

 

“I had dinner with the Diggory family over the Christmas holiday,” said Bones, adjusting her monocle. Remus, who had been expecting just about anything but that, said nothing. After a pause, Bones continued. “Cedric -- Amos’s son -- spoke very highly of you, Remus. Very highly. It’s clear that your students have a great deal of respect for you, and that you go out of your way to look out for them.”

 

Still, Remus remained silent. Behind Bones, Scrimgeour shifted impatiently.

 

“I would hate to think that you’re helping Black get in, Remus,” said Bones quietly. She waited for Remus to speak, but he bit down on the inside of his mouth. His instincts were telling him to wait until he was asked a direct question. Bones sighed. “Help me out, here. It’s not exactly a secret that you were one of his best friends. Hell, I was in school with you both. I gave you I don’t know how many detentions together.”

 

Remus very much doubted that Amelia Bones would have remembered any detentions she handed out to second years while she was a seventh year Head Girl over twenty years ago, but he again declined to comment.

 

Bones leaned back in her chair, surveying him. “Remus, help me help you.”

 

Finally, Remus spoke. “I’m not helping him get in, Madam Bones.”

 

“Really?” Scrimgeour cut in. “Because Filius Flitwick says that you saw him in December, and yet we never received a report from you. Did it get lost in the shuffle somewhere?”

 

Remus swore silently, but fought to keep his face composed. “There was no report. Yes, I did see him, six hundred miles from this school. He ran away from me. For my own safety, I didn’t give chase. How is that relevant to the question of his gaining entry to this castle?”

 

Scrimgeour suddenly strode forward and slammed his fist down onto Remus’s desktop, then braced himself on it, bringing his furious, bearded face within inches of Remus’s own. “Enough of this!” he snarled. “Twice now Black has entered the castle where one of his closest schoolboy friends lives and works! And we come to find out that you had seen him and let him get away! Don’t think we don’t know what you’re about, werewolf!”

 

“Rufus!” shouted Bones, rising from her own seat. “Enough! We have discussed this, and you know it’s completely irrelevant to the matter at hand! Back away from him, this instant!”

 

Scrimgeour, breathing hard, held his position over Remus for another few tense minutes before he shoved away from the desk and resumed his stance behind his Department Head. She glared at him before slowly sinking back into her own seat. Remus, who had held his body as rigidly as he could through the whole exchange, still did not move. 

 

Robards, who had been silent up until that point, took a step forward. “Professor Lupin, where were you tonight between eight in the evening and two in the morning?”

 

Still fighting to keep his face empty of all expression, Remus replied, “I took a walk through the castle, and then returned to my office. I don’t recall the specific time that I went to bed.”

 

“But you were alone for the whole time?” Robards pressed. 

 

Remus swallowed hard. “Yes, I was.”

 

Robards nodded once. “I see.”

 

Again, Bones sighed. “Remus, I’ll ask you once more. Are you helping him get into the castle?”

 

Remus met her stern gaze without flinching, and wondered if she was using Legilimency beneath that monocle. “No, I am not.”

 

She studied him for the length of another heartbeat, then asked, “Do you think that Sirius Black is guilty of the crimes for which he was imprisoned?”

 

The truth rose like bile in Remus’s throat. He swallowed it down. “Yes, I do.”

 

Another silent moment passed, in which Remus refused to drop Bones’s gaze. Then she stood. “Very well. Remus, I take it you’re not planning on going on any sort of holiday in the middle of a school term?”

 

He kept his seat as he shook his head. “No, madam.”

 

She nodded, still watching him sternly. “If that changes, please let us know before you leave.” She nodded at her two Aurors, and they both followed her out the door, Scrimgeour pausing to shoot one more vicious glare Remus’s way. Bones made sure that they left the door open on their way out.

 

He waited until the sound of their echoing footsteps faded on the stone steps of the tower before he slumped back in his chair, lifting his shaking hands over his face.

 

***

 

When classes resumed on Monday, Remus was surprised by how quickly the story of Ron Weasley’s near-death experience had spread -- and become wildly distorted. He supposed he shouldn’t have, though, considering that for a few weeks in his fifth year it had been widely accepted truth that Death Eaters had broken into the castle and kidnapped a first year, despite all the first years being accounted for.

 

However much Ron Weasley was enjoying his newfound celebrity, his escape with his life seemed to baffle him as much as anybody. “Why, though?” Remus heard Ron asking Harry in the corridor a few mornings later as the entire castle dispersed from the Great Hall to their morning lessons. “Why’d he run?”

 

Harry, looking deep in thought, shrugged rather than give an answer, and Remus couldn’t help but wonder what the boy made of it. As far as Remus knew, Harry believed that Sirius was responsible for the deaths of James and Lily, and now had tried to kill Harry’s best friend.

 

One person was not so reticent with her reaction. On Monday morning during breakfast, the entire Gryffindor table fell silent as a majestic barn owl swooped down from the rafters and glided down to land between Neville Longbottom, Ron, and Harry. After a moment of shock, Neville seized the envelope and ran. Remus sighed as Augusta Longbottom’s shrieks echoed in from the entrance hall. 

 

Remus happened to have patrol duty that week, so he was working alongside the prefects and Head Boys and Girls as they made their rounds. The faculty member on duty usually wound up paired with a fifth year, and that week, Remus found himself working with Cedric Diggory.

 

There were times, when Cedric spoke up during the extra Defense review sessions, or when Remus’s patrol duty had taken him to the Quidditch pitch where Cedric was running practice, that he could easily see the type of man Cedric would grow to be. The boy’s patience and generosity, coupled with his quick smile and fierce boyhood sense of fairness, handily earned him the respect of all his peers. Remus knew that his own father had been working with Amos Diggory for years, and wondered what the two of them would make of it, their sons so easily trading respect.

 

“How’s exam preparation going?” Remus asked as the two of them rounded a corner in the fourth floor corridor. “We’re only about six weeks out from OWLs now, aren’t we?”

 

Cedric sighed and nodded. “Yeah. It’s going, I suppose. Everyone I’ve talked to feels best prepared for Defense, Transfiguration, and Charms. Potions is making everyone nervous. The poor bastards in Arithmancy always look on the verge of tears.”

 

Remus snorted. “I remember that.”

 

“You took Arithmancy?” 

 

“I did, yeah.” Remus cleared his throat. “Had my eye on the policy-writing end of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement for a little while.”

 

“But you didn’t go into it?” Cedric asked, before a look of realization washed over his face, leaving him extremely uncomfortable. “Oh…”

 

What neither of them said aloud was that Amos Diggory had written a bill that banned werewolves from holding government office, citing werewolves’ near-overwhelming support of Voldemort. The bill had been voted almost unanimously into law by the Wizengamot, and had fast-tracked Diggory to his position as Head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.

 

“Not only that,” said Remus, gesturing vaguely at the silent spectre of Cedric’s father, “but we were at war. I got caught up doing other things after graduation.”

 

Cedric nodded slowly and shook his hair out of his eyes. Incongruously, Remus noted that the boy was almost taller than he himself was. They strode past a bank of windows that overlooked the black mass of the lake, and the moonlight rippled across its surface as one of the Giant Squid’s tentacles emerged, only to splash back down.

 

“Can you tell me what it was like?” Cedric asked quietly.

 

Remus glanced at him, eyebrows raised. “What, wartime?”

 

Cedric nodded jerkily. “But I mean. If you’d rather not -- I mean, I understand. I just --”

 

Remus faced forward again. “No, it’s all right.” He considered for a moment. Their footsteps thumped against the thick Oriental carpet that covered a stretch of the stone floor of the corridor. “You have to understand that it didn’t feel like a war, not at first. There would be one or two instances of major property destruction, but against Muggles. There was mostly… it was a shift in political attitude. More and more anti-Muggle rhetoric, anti-Muggleborn rhetoric. Laws started getting proposed -- some of them even passed -- about blood tests, screenings, things like that. Three or four times, this faction of the older pureblood families in the Wizengamot tried to pass a law that would require a child to prove that they were no less than a quarter pureblood before they purchased a wand.”

 

“My God,” muttered Cedric. “But isn’t Dumbledore head of the Wizengamot?”

 

“He didn’t get the appointment until 1976. That was after the killings started.” Remus took a moment before going on. “That was my fifth year at Hogwarts. We started hearing about people going missing, or being found dead in their homes. A close friend of mine -- a Muggleborn -- her mum died in 1977. The Muggles declared it a car accident, but…” 

 

_ Lily, white faced and tight-lipped, curled in on herself, huddled under James’s arm wrapped securely around her shoulders. She stared forward unseeingly as her mother’s brother delivered the eulogy to the packed Cokeworth church. Rose Evans had been well-loved by her community, it seemed, and Sirius, Peter, Remus, and Mary had struggled to find seats together for the funeral. Marlene, who had a Divination exam that day, had been unable to come, but she had sent them all off with fierce hugs and orders to give her love to Lily. Petunia, seated between Lily and her own husband Vernon, sobbed into a handkerchief as her uncle spoke. _

 

_ Sirius, tugging at the collar of the black Muggle dress shirt that Mary had forced him into, shifted beside Remus. “Did she say anything to you this morning?” he whispered to Mary. _

 

_ Mary shrugged, her freckles more pronounced than usual against her pallor. “Not really. She knows her sister blames her for it. Obviously this wasn’t an accident, and in Petunia’s mind, if Lily weren’t… Lily, there would have been no reason to kill Rose.” _

 

_ Remus swore under his breath as Peter asked, “Is Fatapal having any luck getting the Aurors to look into it?” _

 

_ All four of them glanced over at where James’s parents were seated a few rows behind the Evans family. Vaguely, Remus registered that it was jarring to see Eshnaa dressed in English clothes, in a somber black dress of the kind that Remus’s own mother would have worn to a high-society tea. A few years ago, James had mentioned that Muslims wore white when in mourning, so Remus knew that Eshnaa and Fatapal were acting out of respect for Lily. _

 

_ “Not that I’ve heard,” Sirius whispered back. “He pulled the Wizengamot membership card on the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, but you know how Crouch is -- Fatapal publicly disagreed with him about wartime governance and shit, so Crouch is refusing to investigate this as a murder.” _

 

“So that’s what it was like,” Remus told Cedric. “It was… we all had to accept that our friends, people we loved, could die at any moment with no warning, no matter what we were doing to try and fight it. And we  _ were _ trying, but there were only so many of us….” Remus trailed off, realizing that he was about to admit to the existence of the Order of the Phoenix.

 

Cedric nodded again, waiting for Remus to continue.

 

“All this was made worse by the way that the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was handling things. Never before had the Aurors and Hit Wizards been given license to use the Unforgivable Curses, or to kill rather than capture. Crouch turned the Auror office into almost a military body.”

 

“And throwing people into Azkaban without a trial?” asked Cedric quietly.

 

Remus didn’t answer, and they walked the length of the fourth floor corridor in silence. As they began to ascend to the fifth floor, Cedric spoke again. “Professor, we were all -- the prefects were all pretty well briefed on Sirius Black’s history at the start of the school year, when we knew that security was going to tighten. So…” he stopped talking and turned to face Remus fully. “I’ve been wondering… why wasn’t Sirius Black given a trial? If someone as evil as Bellatrix Lestrange warranted a trial, then why --? I mean, Black was arrested after Voldemort died, and the war was over, and there was nothing left to prove.”

 

“I don’t know,” Remus answered, fisting his hands in the pockets of his robes, meeting the boy’s frustrated grey eyes. “I wish I did, Cedric.”

 

When Remus fell silent, Cedric’s expression softened. “Is it safer for you if we don’t talk about this?”

 

Reluctantly, Remus nodded. “I’m sorry.”

 

Cedric snorted and resumed walking. “Don’t be. It’s not your fault this all got so fucked up.”

 

***

 

Remus held Neville back after class on Wednesday, and made the boy a cup of tea in his office. Minerva, caving to pressure from the school governors, had forbidden anyone from telling Neville what the password to the Gryffindor common room was for the rest of the month, and some of the other students -- the Slytherins in particular -- were refusing to let Neville forget the Howler. Neville, shrunken up and beaten down, accepted Remus’s mug of tea with trembling hands, and didn’t look up as Remus took a seat in the scuffed leather chair beside Neville’s in front of the teacher’s desk in his office.

 

Remus decided not to ask Neville anything about the incident with Sirius. Instead, he coaxed Neville into talking about almost anything else -- his other classes, his pet toad, and the new independent study he had begun with Professor Sprout. 

 

“After last year, when we needed the extract from the Mandrake root so badly,” Neville said, growing more animated and setting his teacup down so that he could talk with his hands, “there was a problem with how long it was taking for a plot of them to grow. But because the Mandrake roots are sentient, a lot of accelerated growth potions are inhumane.” 

 

Remus nodded behind his own mug, fascinated. “So what are you trying instead?”

 

“We’re experimenting with some Muggle products, actually,” Neville told him, his face shining with his enthusiasm. “There are some types of fertilizer that Muggle gardeners use that fix nitrogen faster, so plants can take more of it in through their roots and grow faster. It’s working pretty well so far, but it’s inconsistent.”

 

They kept talking until Neville, his face falling, said he had to leave for detention with Professor McGonagall. Remus sighed as he accepted the empty teacup that Neville held out to him. “Neville… you know that you can come talk to me about anything, right?”

 

Neville found a smile for him. “Yes, sir.”

 

***

 

Remus’s Patronus lessons with Harry seemed to have come to an end. As Gryffindor had performed so well in their match against Ravenclaw, the team was guaranteed a spot in the Quidditch cup against whomever emerged victorious in the upcoming Slytherin-Ravenclaw match. With this in mind, Oliver Wood had increased his team’s practices to five nights a week. “It would be six,” Angelina grumbled in one of the review sessions for the fourth-year material, “but we fought him. The majority of us are OWL students.”

 

The third years were also staring exam season down, and Harry had after all proven that he could produce a corporeal Patronus, so Remus wasn’t exactly proactive in urging Harry to continue his lessons. He wasn’t sure if he could take it -- wasn’t sure if he could handle being in the same room as Harry and be forbidden to tell him that he had his father’s Patronus.

 

For all that, Remus didn’t speak to the boy outside of class all week. Harry seemed quieter than usual, which Remus attributed to lingering anxiety over what might have happened to his friend as well as the ongoing conflict -- whatever it was -- with Hermione Granger. As the Easter holidays approached, it was almost as if Remus’s life as a teacher was descending back into something approaching normalcy.

 

The Saturday of the last Hogsmeade weekend before the holiday was the first day in weeks that it didn’t rain. After lunch, Remus found himself standing by the window in his office, a cup of coffee in his hand, as he looked over the weak sunlight straining to reach the grounds. The surface of the lake shimmered gold, and on its shore, the Whomping Willow stood completely still. Remus studied it for a moment, then turned away from the window.

 

He was working through marking a stack of intensive essays for his NEWT students -- he was prioritizing them, as their exam had the most riding on it, and he was rapidly approaching the point where he would no longer assign them homework so that they could study -- when he jumped as green flames burst into existence in his fireplace. “Lupin!” said Snape’s harsh voice from the heart of the flames, “I want a word!”

 

Apprehensively, Remus set down his quill. Snape had never summoned him to his office before. Remus’s heart began to pound. What if there was a problem with the Wolfsbane, and he wouldn’t be able to take it that month? He’d have to hole up in the Shrieking Shack again -- 

 

Remus shook himself. He had no cause to believe that yet. Instead, he squared his shoulders and took a deep breath before standing and making his way to the hearth. He stepped into the Floo Fire and tucked his elbows in before it whisked him away, spinning him wildly. When he landed, he took a moment to brace himself before he stepped out. 

 

He felt his eyebrows lift as his gaze darted from Snape, flushed and seething, to Harry Potter, whose own angry face bore the recent sweat marks of one who had recently been running very fast. “You called, Severus?” Remus asked slowly.

 

“I certainly did.” With a sweep of his black robes, Snape strode to his desk and snatched up an old, tattered piece of parchment. “I have just asked Potter to empty his pockets.” He thrust the parchment at Remus. “He was carrying this.”

 

Glistening up from the page, as if they had just been written, were the words of Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs.

 

A low buzzing sounded in Remus’s ears, growing steadily louder as his field of vision seemed to narrow. There it was, ink still wet, James’s spiky, disjointed scrawl… Peter’s flowing handwriting… 

 

“Well?” Snape’s impatient voice pierced through Remus’s fog, and it was as if some level of Remus’s mind was struggling to awaken the rest of him. The map. Harry had had the map. Which meant that Sirius didn’t have it. Sirius hadn’t stolen it. Harry had it. James’s son had the map… 

 

“ _ Well?” _ hissed Snape, his impatience seeping through his words. “This parchment is plainly full of Dark Magic. This is supposed to be your area of expertise, Lupin. Where do you imagine Potter got such a thing?”

 

Remus dragged himself back to awareness to meet Snape’s cold, calculating eyes. They both knew that Snape had forgotten more about Dark Magic than Remus himself had ever known in the first place, and Remus wasn’t stupid enough to miss what Snape was actually accusing him of. Remus shot a quick look at Harry, whose nervous eyes were darting back and forth between his two professors.  _ Quiet _ , Remus thought towards him, and hoped that the boy understood.

 

He faced off against Snape again and braced himself. “Full of Dark Magic?” he asked. “Do you really think so, Severus?” He knew that Snape had no real proof of anything, including the real identities of Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, and was counting on that to get himself and Harry out of this. “It looks to me as though it is merely a piece of parchment that insults anybody who reads it. Childish, but surely not dangerous? I imagine Harry got it from a joke shop --”

 

“Indeed?” hissed Snape, his eyes glittering with rage as he caught up to what Remus was doing. “You think a joke shop could supply him with such a thing? You don’t think it more likely that he got it directly from the manufacturers?”

 

_ James lay flat on his back on the floor of the parlor and lifted the giggling baby above his head. “And then you’ll get to Hogwarts, and you’ll be top of your class, and you’ll be Quidditch captain by your fourth year, and you’ll break your Padfoot Chacha’s record for most number of detentions in a school year--” _

 

_ “He will not,” interrupted Lily, bored, as she continued reviewing Remus’s mission report. Dumbledore had allowed her to act as Remus’s handler for his brief overnight spying adventure into one of Greyback’s camps, because the camp had been very near Cokeworth.  _

 

_ “Oh yes you will,” said James to Harry over Remus’s laughter, lowering the baby so that they were nearly nose-to-nose, and lifting him all the way up again when Harry made a grab for James’s glasses. “You’ll sneak out all the time, and you’ll have plenty of help, because your Appa will give you his Invisibility Cloak, yes he will, and he’ll also give you the very special map that he and Padfoot Chacha and Moony Chacha and Wormtail Chacha wrote --” _

 

_ “James,” said Lily, smiling through her exasperation, “wasn’t half the fun for you lot figuring it all out yourselves? Do you just want to hand it to him on a silver platter?” _

 

_ “She’s got a point, Prongs,” said Remus. _

 

_ James lowered Harry so that the baby was sitting on James’s stomach. “Your Moony Chacha says that your Ammi has a point, bittu. What do you think? Do you want to work for it? Do you want to earn your title of Troublemaker-in-Chief? Or do you want to just nepotism your way into it, like some snotty white pureblood arsehole?” _

 

_ “Gah!” shouted Harry, smiling his gummy smile at his father’s face before crawling up James’s chest to have another go at stealing his glasses. Lily, covering her face as her shoulders shook with laughter, didn’t bother scolding James for swearing. _

 

Remus frowned at Snape, swallowing hard around where his heart seemed to be pounding in his throat. “You mean, by Mr. Wormtail or one of these people? Harry, do you know these men?”

 

“No,” responded Harry immediately, shaking his head.

 

Remus inhaled sharply through his nose and tried not to feel the familiar sting of rejection again. He faced Snape once again. “You see, Severus? It looks like a Zonko product to me --”

 

The door to Snape’s office burst open, and Remus had to fight the instinct to reach for his wand. It was Ron Weasley, red in the face and breathing as if he had just sprinted a mile. He skidded to a halt next to Harry, clutching his side and nearly doubled over, but he pulled himself upright just enough to gasp out, “I gave Harry that stuff. Bought it in Zonko’s ages ago --”

 

“Well, that seems to clear that up!” said Remus, clapping his hands, shifting Snape’s snarling focus away from the boys. “Severus, I’ll take this back, shall I?” He fought to keep his hands from shaking as he folded up the map and tucked it away. “Harry, Ron, come with me. I need a word about my vampire essay. Excuse us, Severus.”

 

They had long since concluded the unit on vampires, but neither of the boys said anything as Remus ushered them from the office. In fact, all three of them remained silent until they had emerged from the dungeons and surfaced in the entrance hall. Now that the shock of seeing the map again was wearing off, something slow and hot was bubbling up in Remus’s gut. It took him a moment to recognize it as anger.

 

“Professor,” came Harry’s hesitant voice from behind Remus, “I --”

 

“I don’t want to hear any explanations,” Remus cut him off, scanning the entrance hall for any potential eavesdroppers before facing the boy head on. “I happen to know that this map was confiscated by Mr. Filch many years ago. Yes, I know it’s a map,” he added impatiently as both boys’ eyes widened in amazement. “I don’t want to know how it fell into your possession. I am, however,  _ astounded _ that you didn’t hand it in. Particularly after what happened the last time a student left information about the castle lying around. And I can’t let you have it back, Harry.”

 

The boy didn’t look surprised, but he also didn’t look like he grasped the seriousness of the situation, which only served to incense Remus further. He knew for a fact that this boy had been told that his life was in danger. And Harry had to remember his own reaction to dementors. Yet here he was, putting himself at risk -- willingly taking the opportunity to void James and Lily’s sacrifice only twelve years in -- for what? A laugh with his mates?

 

Harry, apparently oblivious to what he had done, asked, “Why did Snape think I had gotten it from the manufacturers?”

 

Remus met Harry’s eyes -- Lily’s eyes -- and even for all his anger found it impossible to lie to the boy. “Because these mapmakers would have wanted to lure you out of the school. They’d think it extremely entertaining.”

 

“Do you  _ know _ them?” asked Harry, awestruck.

 

_ “I cannot believe,” Lily pronounced, looking around at all of them from her seat on James’s lap, “that you lot gave yourselves nicknames.” _

 

_ “Ah, come on,” drawled Sirius, as Remus gazed about to ensure that nobody was listening in on them where they were huddled in a corner of the half-empty common room. “You have to admit that they’re incredibly cool nicknames.” _

 

_ Lily snorted and leaned her head back against James’s shoulder, missing his look of joyful wonder as he wrapped his arms tighter around her waist. “I have to admit nothing of the kind. Because it’s not like you stopped at individual nicknames. Oh no. You had to go for broke. You had to come up with a bloody group name.” _

 

_ “Lads,” cut in James, “I just got her to date me. Let’s end this conversation now so you lot don’t embarrass me any further.” _

 

_ “Why?” grinned Peter. “Worried she might realize what a horrible mistake she’s made?” _

 

_ “No, he’s worried that she’ll see the obvious truth of my Animagus being much cooler than Prongs’s,” said Sirius, “and dump him for me.” _

 

_ Lily reached for a quill that lay on the table to the side of the armchair into which she and James were folded, and threw it at Sirius. “Right. That’s likely.” _

 

“We’ve met,” said Remus brusquely. He wanted to take Harry by the shoulders, to shake him, to do something that would tell the boy how important this was. But if the image of Sirius standing over Harry’s best friend with a knife wasn’t going to do it, then Remus wasn’t sure that anything would. Because whether or not Sirius had sold out James and Lily and killed Peter, Azkaban easily had the power to unhinge anyone, to turn anyone violent. “Don’t expect me to cover up for you again, Harry. I cannot make you take Sirius Black seriously. But I would have thought that what you have heard when the dementors draw near you would have had more of an effect on you. Your parents gave their lives to keep you alive, Harry. A poor way to repay them -- gambling their sacrifice for a bag of magic tricks.”

 

He did not linger to watch the shame flood Harry’s face. His blood was still pounding in his temples as he ascended the marble staircase, and he did not hear the boys move behind him.

 

He was nauseous. He didn’t know what he was feeling. Harry had had the Marauders’ Map, but he had no idea of the work that had gone into it -- had no idea that Sirius had decided to write it, that it had been James who had finally gotten the location charm right, that it had been crafted with knowledge that they had all only been able to acquire because they had risked their lives to keep Remus company during his transformations. The boy had no idea that his father was one of the most skilled wizards that Remus had ever met, and he had no memory of the sound of Lily’s laughter. Harry did not remember them. 

 

And it hadn’t been Sirius who had stolen the map from Filch. It hadn’t been Sirius. Whatever Sirius wanted in this castle, he was so sure that he’d find it in the Gryffindor Tower that he had made two attempts to enter it.

 

Remus didn’t realize he was shaking until he was back in his cold and shadowy office. He shut the door behind himself and leaned against the cool wood, slowly sinking to the stone floor. It took him three tries to pull the map out from within his robes. Slowly, he unfolded it. The insults against Snape had faded, and Remus took a deep breath as he pointed his wand at the yellowed parchment.

 

“I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”

 

And just as he remembered, the spidery black lines spread from where his wand made contact with the parchment, filling the whole map, surrounding the tiny moving dots. Remus gasped out a breath as the titles spread out across the top of the map.  _ Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs _ .

 

_ “How come Remus gets to be first?” demanded Sirius, his long dark hair falling into his eyes and he leaned over James’s shoulder.  _

 

_ “Because he’s cooler than you,” James responded absently, his quill scratching as he finished shading in the heading.  _

 

_ Remus snorted as Sirius muttered, “Seems fake.” _

 

_ “I’m obviously cooler than you, Padfoot.” _

 

_ “And I kind of resent the implication that the first person is the coolest at all,” added Peter. _

 

_ “That sounds like a you problem,” scoffed Sirius without looking at him. _

 

The map slipped from Remus’s hands and landed on the stone floor as the hot tears bubbled up and burned their way down his face.


	15. The Quidditch Final

_ It was a quiet night in February when Lily held James and Remus back at the end of meeting of the Head students and prefects and whispered to them that she had gotten a message from Dumbledore in which he had asked to see the three of them privately. Her look of confusion headed off Remus’s question as to what the meeting was about, and instead, all three of them set off through the muted darkness of the castle at night. There was a new moon that night, and heavy cloud cover that promised rain prevented even the faintest starlight from glimmering off the surface of the lake.  _

 

_ Their footsteps echoed through the empty corridors, and every few feet, as they passed a lit torch, Remus would glance to his left and see James’s somber expression in the orange light, or Lily biting her lip nervously as she walked between them. _

 

_ “Peppermint toad,” said James to the gargoyle statue, which sprang to the side and revealed the moving spiral staircase. He stepped back to let Lily on first, before trading an anxious glance with Remus as they followed her.  _

 

_ Dumbledore’s door was open when they reached the top of the stairs, and slowly they advanced into the office. Dumbledore looked up from where he was seated at his desk, poring over a sheaf of parchment. McGonagall, perched in one of the chairs on the other side of the desk, glanced at the three of them as they entered, finding a small smile for them. “Come in, all of you,” invited Dumbledore, inspecting them over his half-moon spectacles, which gleamed in the lamplight as a fire crackled in the hearth. “Miss Evans, have a seat, please.” _

 

_ Lily took the chair beside McGonagall, and James and Remus stood behind her. Remus shoved his hands in his pockets, and they all waited.  _

 

_ Dumbledore shared a glance with McGonagall, then faced his students again. “First, I would like to congratulate all of you on your exemplary leadership this year. It hasn’t been easy, I know, but you’ve all handled yourselves remarkably well.”  _

 

_ In what looked to Remus like an unconscious gesture, James reached up to fidget with his Head Boy badge, where it was pinned next to his Quidditch captain badge on his robes. James had been more surprised than anyone, Remus knew, to get the title, but to Remus it hadn’t been entirely unexpected. Over their sixth year, as the reality of the war had sunk in, James had all but completely foregone planning pranks and skipping class. Instead, he had begun using his popularity to boost morale in the corridors as well as to help Lily and Remus break up the near-constant duels in the corridors between the sympathizers of the Dark Lord and the children of the families who opposed him. All this was to say nothing of the ferocity with which he defended Sirius from the sons of other prominent pureblood families who had heard of Orion disowning him, or his willingness to prioritize Remus’s health and safety during his transformations above all else. _

 

_ “As I’m sure you’re all aware,” continued Dumbledore, “the wizard styling himself as Lord Voldemort--” he ignored Remus and Lily’s winces “--has become more overt with his acts of violence, as have his followers. It has therefore become necessary to build an organization to combat him in the ways in which the Ministry is either unwilling or able to do.” _

 

_ James and Remus glanced at each other. During patrols not even a week ago, they had speculated that Dumbledore had built just such an organization, considering bits of information that Fatapal had let slip to James, as well as Dumbledore and McGonagall’s frequent absences from the castle. _

 

_ “I am asking you all to consider joining this organization,” said Dumbledore quietly, his ice blue eyes searching each of their faces in turn, “after you have finished school.” _

 

_ Lily’s fingers twisted together in her lap, and James lay a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Yes,” he said. “For my part, yes. I don’t need to consider it.” _

 

_ McGonagall shifted. “James, please. Do take some time to consider it. We are not asking any of you for an answer tonight --” _

 

_ “You have my answer tonight,” cut in James, looking from her to Dumbledore and back again. “I want in. I want to fight him.” _

 

_ Lily took a deep, shuddering breath, and Remus turned to stare unseeingly out the window. “James,” he heard Dumbledore say, “as Professor McGonagall said, we do not want you to commit to this in haste. I understand that your sense of justice or duty may compel you to agree immediately, but please take some time to be sure --” _

 

_ “How can you expect me to not be sure?” James snapped, and when Remus turned back to face him, he saw James glaring at their headmaster. “My girlfriend, the girl I love — they want her dead just because of who her parents are. One of my best mates was disowned and keeps getting his life threatened by other pureblood brats, because he hangs around with people they think are unclean! My other best mate — this bloke right here —” he waved a hand at Remus without looking at him “--his government wants him euthanized, and it’s because of the same bullshit agenda that this Voldemort bloke is pushing! Of course I’m sure I want to fight him!” _

 

_ In the few seconds of ringing silence that followed this outburst, nobody moved. Remus was staring at James, almost unable to recognize him, to reconcile him with the boy who had dramatically revealed his father’s Invisibility Cloak on the Hogwarts Express and led a frenzy of excited plans of secret excursions to the kitchen to steal as many cakes as they could carry. McGonagall, whose eyes looked suspiciously bright, nodded once.  _

 

_ “I want to fight too,” said Lily, her voice quiet from behind the dark curtain of her hair. She looked up slowly from her lap to meet Dumbledore’s gaze as she said, “It’s not right, what he’s doing. He can’t just… decide that he wants us all dead because we’re not magic enough for him. That’s not a contract I ever agreed to.” _

 

_ She reached up to where James’s hand was still on her shoulder and linked her fingers with his. “Besides,” she added, her smile faint but no less sincere, “somebody has to stop this idiot from getting himself killed.” _

 

_ “I’m in too,” said Remus, his voice low. James and Lily both turned to him, James smiling his bold, fierce smile. “For all of their reasons.” He took a deep breath and felt something shift in his chest. “Everyone keeps telling us that… that this isn’t really that bad, or that it’ll solve itself. But that’s not going to happen, is it? He has to be stopped. Somebody has to stop him.” _

 

_ Abruptly McGonagall stood and strode to where Lily was seated. McGonagall took Lily’s head in both her hands and dropped a kiss onto the girl’s head, before brushing past her and pulling Remus into a hug so tight he couldn’t breathe. When McGonagall released him, she wrapped her arms around James in an embrace that looked just as fierce. With her forefinger and her thumb, she reached up to pinch James’s cheeks. “Your parents will be so proud of you,” Remus heard her whisper, her voice rougher than usual. _

 

_ As McGonagall stepped away from James, Dumbledore smiled. “Very well then. Thank you, all of you. Within the next few days, I shall arrange for you to be briefed on certain matters by those who are already part of this organization, or working on its behalf.”  _

 

_ Remus nodded, and felt rather than saw James and Lily do the same. “Sir,” said James, the hesitant note in his voice a sharp contrast from his fierce conviction of moments ago. “If you  haven’t already, you should ask Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew to be a part of this, as well.” _

 

_ Again, Dumbledore considered James over his half-moon spectacles. “Are you certain, Mr. Potter? I’d rather not introduce anyone into a scenario for which they are not prepared.” _

 

_ “Sirius and Peter can handle this,” James said staunchly. “They’ll want to fight, both of them. I know it. And they both have skills we can use. Also… I’d rather not lie to either of them about what it is we’re all up to, not when it’s something they’d believe in too.” _

 

_ Dumbledore glanced at Remus, who nodded silently. James was right -- Sirius more than anyone would want a part of this war, and they had all always needed Peter to see things differently, to give them new ideas.  _

 

_ “Very well,” said Dumbledore, drawing a blank sheet of parchment towards himself and loading a quill with ink. “I shall meet with both Mr. Black and Mr. Pettigrew tomorrow. I’d rather they hear it from me first, though, so I would appreciate it if all three of you could keep this to yourselves until I have a chance to speak with them?” _

 

_ Remus and the others nodded, James with his proud, determined smile back in place. Remus knew how much it meant to James, that he would get to fight for what he believed in alongside the people he loved and trusted most. _

 

When Harry, Ron, and Hermione all walked into Remus’s class together on Wednesday, clearly friends again, Remus was pleased, but his reflexive smile fell quickly from his face. Another wave of nausea rolled over him. Snape was leaving the poppyseed out of the Wolfsbane entirely, Remus was sure of it, after the incident over the Marauders’ Map. He rolled his shoulders before he forced himself to stand, and called the class to order.

 

“As you all know, this is the last time we’re meeting before the Easter recess,” he began as they all settled down. “Please pass forward your vampire essays, and we’ll review the material before we officially close the unit.”

 

In the ensuing shuffle of sheets of parchment making their way forward, Remus glanced at Harry. The boy kept his gaze fixed on his desk as he reached forward to hand his essay to Lavender, and Remus sighed. He’d had no right, he knew, to invoke the ghosts of James and Lily to scold their son. Maybe in another world, where Harry knew Remus as Uncle Moony, it would have been all right. But this was reality, where Dumbledore forbade Remus from telling Harry anything about his parents. 

 

Of course, any world in which Remus had remained Harry’s Uncle Moony was one in which James and Lily had not died, and Sirius wouldn’t be a madman who had escaped from Azkaban, and there would have been no reason to scold Harry at all.

 

Remus moved across the front of the room and collected their essays, stacking them neatly and laying them down on his desk. As the joints in his back protested against movement, he felt himself wince and moved to his customary perch on his desk. “Now,” he began, “Who can tell me the process through which vampires are made?”

 

Predictably, Hermione’s hand rose, along with Parvati’s and Neville’s. Remus, smiling, nodded at Neville, who said, “Another vampire has to bite a human, but not kill them. Three days later, the transformation is complete.”

 

“Very good,” Remus nodded, and Neville flushed. “Is there any sort of cure for a vampire bite?”

 

He thought he saw Harry’s hand twitch, as if the boy had been about to raise it, but had changed his mind. Remus met his eyes briefly, but the boy looked away, and Remus was forced to call on Parvati.

 

Harry did not speak for the entirety of the class, and when Remus dismissed them with the wish of a happy holiday, Harry and Ron were the first two out of the door. Remus shoved his hands into his pockets as he watched them go. How had they gotten here? 

 

***

 

That afternoon, once classes had ended and Remus had ducked into his office to drop off a stack of books before dinner, he was surprised to find Minerva’s screech owl bearing an invitation for him to join her for a private supper in her office. They had not spoken alone together since she had so thoroughly scolded him after Sirius’s entrance to Gryffindor Tower, so he was surprised, to say the least. 

 

He was apprehensive as he approached her office, but her door was open, and there was a fire crackling in the hearth to ward off the last of the March chill. He paused in the doorframe and saw Minerva, hair in a stern bun as ever, seated at her desk, marking what looked like a student essay. Remus hesitated for a beat, then cleared his throat and rapped his knuckles against the open door.

 

Minerva looked up and gave a smile that Remus thought looked sincere. “Remus. Come in, please,” she invited as she set her quill down and stood. 

 

Remus took only two steps into the room, and then stood stiff, his hands in his pockets. He had never been this uncomfortable around her before, but then, the last time he had spoken to her, she had accused him of high treason.

 

She moved around him to shut the door, and then she smiled at him and gestured towards the table and chairs in front of her fireplace. “Do sit, please. I just had the house-elves send up dinner.”

 

Slowly, Remus followed her to the table and took the seat that she indicated. As she took her own seat, she smiled at him again. He wondered if he was imagining that it was happening more than usual. “Now. How have you been, these last few weeks?”

 

He cleared his throat. “Good. Thank you. And yourself?”

 

“I’m well,” she responded, and then sighed. “I’ve actually been thinking quite a bit about our last conversation. I owe you an apology, Remus.”

 

He raised his eyebrows but said nothing, waiting for Minerva to go on.

 

She cleared her throat. “Remus, I should never have asked you if you were helping Black get into the castle. I know you better than that. I know you would never do something like that -- I know you would never endanger the students in that way.”

 

“Thank you,” said Remus, and then he waited.

 

Minerva picked up her fork and knife and began to cut into her chicken as she continued, “There’s actually something else. I was in a meeting with Dumbledore and Fudge and Amelia Bones, and it occurred to me… he waited until he had been in Azkaban for twelve years to break out. Wouldn’t that mean that he could have broken out at any time before that? Why wait?”

 

“I had that thought too,” said Remus before he could stop himself. He took a moment to weigh his options before he went on, “He had to have been weaker this past July than he had been at any point before that, because the dementors break spirits over time.”

 

Minerva looked as if she was waiting, but Remus did not elaborate. After a beat, her expression softened. “Remus. You can trust me. I know that I spoke to you in a manner that is unacceptable, but you  _ can _ trust me.”

 

“I do trust you,” Remus said automatically, even as he remembered that Flitwick had sold him out to the Aurors. Remus had thought he could trust the Charms master too.

 

As if she was reading his mind, Minerva said, “Filius told me what he said to Scrimgeour, and I know that Bones pulled you in for interrogation on the night that Black broke in. I’m sorry, Remus. You didn't deserve that.”

 

Remus shrugged, chewing on his chicken and fixing his eyes on his plate. Minerva reached across the table to lay her hand on his as she added, “And you did know Sirius better than I did, to be sure. If you have your doubts about his guilt, that’s more than understandable. I’m sure you have your reasons.”

 

Rather than answer her, Remus speared a piece of broccoli on his fork. Minerva seemed to sense that he wasn’t going to indulge her in any further discussion about Sirius, and instead asked him a question about his lesson plans leading into exam season. 

 

The rest of their meal passed that way, in uncomfortable, stilted conversation about OWLs, and some small part of Remus wondered how easy it had been for Minerva to believe that Sirius had done it. She had not mentioned him at all in her eulogy at James and Lily’s funeral, and she had not spoken at all at Peter’s memorial service held a few days later. 

 

Finally, at the end of the evening, Minerva wiped her mouth with her napkin and sighed once more. “Remus, I know that I have a long way to go before I rebuild your trust. But I hope that you will let me try.”

 

He didn’t know what to say to that, so he simply nodded. “Good night, Minerva. Thank you for dinner.”

 

She gave him a small, sad smile and showed him to the door. He nodded at her as he stepped out into the corridor, and shoved his hands into his pockets as he strolled back towards his own office.

 

***

 

Remus heard the clock chime three in the morning as he lay in bed that night, staring at the rafters, unable to sleep. He hated it, that small part of himself that made it so hard for him to keep trusting Minerva after what she had said.

 

He was beginning to sound like Moody at the end of the war, he realized. There’s a spy. Trust no one. Trust no one. Trust no one.

 

Abruptly, Remus sat up in the cold darkness of his sleeping quarters, and dragged his hands down his face. His skin was crawling, his legs were tingling -- he wanted to claw his way out of his own body, to stop feeling like this.

 

He threw the covers aside and turned on the lamp at his bedside. He would take a walk, that was what he would do -- he would wander around the castle until this  _ feeling _ went away. Jerkily, he got dressed and jammed his feet into boots.

 

It was only after he had shrugged into his cloak that it occurred to him that it would be in his best interest to avoid as many people as possible tonight, considering what had happened the last time he had been unable to account for his presence in the castle.

 

Slowly, he turned so that he was facing his desk, and stared at the locked bottom drawer. Without making the conscious decision to do so, he knelt before the desk, drawing his key ring out of his pocket as he did so. He saw his own hand unlock the drawer and pull it open, and then he reached in, and pulled it out.

 

He sat back on his heels and cradled the aged piece of parchment in his hand. It was worn and yellowed, the edges frayed. He had not examined it since the night he had taken it from Harry, but now, he lifted his wand, tapped it to the parchment, and whispered, “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”

 

The familiar lines poured from the tip of his wand and spread like spiderwebs across the parchment, and there at the top the scroll bearing their names unfurled. His touch featherlight, he traced the freshly inked words. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs. 

 

He took a deep, shuddering breath, and his gaze wandered over the drawings of the familiar hallways. Penelope Clearwater and Jack Fitzhugh had been the prefects on duty that night, but their shifts had long since ended. Dumbledore was in his study, McGonagall in her quarters. 

 

Remus’s gaze drifted towards the Gryffindor Tower. Harry, along with Ron, Dean, Neville, and Seamus, was in his dormitory, his small black dot unmoving. Remus watched it for a moment before sighing, folding up the map, pocketing it, and rising to his feet.

 

He knew that the way to the Astronomy Tower was clear, so he began wandering in that general direction.

 

The castle was quiet, all the portraits asleep, the sky outside still and cloudless. Remus moved through the corridors, listening to the sound of his own breathing, of his feet padding along the stone floors. He held his lit wand loosely in his hand, watching the pool of light bob ahead of him, feeling in his bones how very alone he was. 

 

_ “Did you know,” asked Lily suddenly, as they made their way through the corridors at the end of their patrols, “that Muggles call three in the morning the witching hour?” _

 

Out of long-remembered habit, he withdrew the map from his cloak to check it. His wandlight drifted across it, checking his own path forward, when movement at the edge of the parchment caught his eye.

 

There, in the part of the map labelled as the Forbidden Forest, a small black dot labelled  _ Sirius Black _ moved in slow circles.

 

Remus froze, the breath knocked out of his body. Blood pounded in his temples as he watched the dot make another slow circuit through its little patch of forest. Sirius was there. He was right  _ there,  _ in the grounds, he was there --

 

Before he knew what he was about, Remus spun on his heel, his vision tunnelling until he could only see the end of the corridor, and he took off at a run. His feet pounding against the cold stone woke some of the portraits, and a few of them even yelled after him, but he couldn’t hear, he couldn’t hear anything over the thumping of his own heart -- 

 

He burst out of a side entrance to the castle, one that he and Peter had unearthed years ago and then hurried to tell James and Sirius about -- he left the door swinging wildly behind him as he raced into the forest, the light from his wand swinging wildly about.

 

Just within the treeline, he skidded to a stop, panting, and re-checked the map. Sirius was still there, still pacing in what looked like slow circles, and Remus took off running again, watching his own dot careen closer to Sirius’s. 

 

And then he was there, he had reached it, he had reached the place where the map said Sirius was. It was a clearing, and Remus thought he could hear the bubble of a stream nearby, but he didn’t care. “Sirius!” he bellowed into the darkness of the trees. “Show yourself!”

 

He waited, feeling the air drag in and out of his lungs, and he pivoted where he stood, the map forgotten where it hung limply in his hand. A cold breeze rushed through the clearing, scattering the dead leaves lying at his feet, but no one approached him. 

 

He laughed once, and it was harsh. “I know you’re there, Padfoot. The map never lies, does it? Get out here!” He turned around in place once more, but only silence greeted him.

 

“Why are you here?” he yelled, hearing his own voice crack as the backs of his eyes began to burn. “Why did you break out? Is it to kill Harry?  _ Is it? _ ” His wandlight continued to dart haphazardly about, illuminating patches of tree trunk here, a low-hanging branch there. “Are you after James’s boy, Sirius? There are days when I really think you might be.”

 

Remus thought he heard a noise behind him, and he spun to face it, but there was only stillness. He laughed again, feeling the wildness creep to the surface of his skin. “Come on, Padfoot, you were never one to run and hide, were you? Face me, why don’t you?  _ Face me! _ ”

 

Again, only silence. Remus took a few steps forward, his hand cold and clammy around the handle of his wand. “You took everything from me, did you know?” His voice bounced back at him off the trees. “You took my family -- the only family I had left -- and they’re dead because of you, all of them. And then you got yourself locked up, and I lost you too.” The first tear burned its way down his face. “I woke up one morning and it was just  _ all over! _ How could you do that?  _ How could you do that to us _ ?”

 

He bellowed the last question, and the echo of his own voice was the only response he got. He roughly scrubbed the back of his hand against his cheek, smearing the tears away.

 

“Why did you have to come back?” he demanded of the silence, his throat too sore to shout anymore. “Why did you have to come back, and bring it all with you? Why couldn’t you just stay gone?”

 

Over the sounds of his own gasping breaths, he finally heard it. The sound of paws, shuffling against the fallen leaves on the forest floor. Slowly, Remus turned to face him.

 

Padfoot’s large, pale eyes gleamed at him out of the darkness, and Remus stared at the dog, not breathing. Padfoot did not move, and they simply stood there, watching each other, for the length of three of Remus’s heartbeats. 

 

Remus swallowed hard and took a step forward. “Sirius…”

 

The dog sprang into action, growling low in its throat. Hackles raised, Padfoot backed away, slowly, before turning and bounding off into the woods. Remus watched him go, suddenly feeling so empty.

 

He knew it was pointless to give chase. A dog of that size, sprinting on all fours, would cover more ground than Remus ever could in his human form. His hand hung loosely at his side, the light from his wand puddling at his feet. 

 

His breaths were still coming hard and fast as he slowly turned and began to make his way back in the direction of the castle. He did not bother checking the map, or listening for the sounds of whatever lived in the forest. It didn’t matter. He didn’t care. The numbness seemed to originate in his gut and spread slowly, encompassing his chest, then his throat. He was aware on some vague level that his face was cold.

 

It was only after he had slipped back into the castle through his secret hidden door that he realized it. That was twice, now. Twice, Sirius had run from him instead of killing him.

 

_ James straightened up in his armchair by the dying embers of the fire in the Gryffindor common room, and batted Remus’s elbow. Remus looked up just in time to see Peter follow Sirius in through the portrait hole. The two of them made their way over to where James, Lily, and Remus were sitting, and as was his habit, Sirius folded himself onto the floor, leaning up against the arm of James’s chair, while Peter sank down onto the sofa beside Lily. Peter was fidgeting nervously, but Sirius tipped his head back so that it was resting against the cracked red leather, and closed his eyes. _

 

_ “How’d it go?” asked James. _

 

_ Sirius snorted without opening his eyes. “Order of the Phoenix. Bloody pretentious name, innit?” _

 

_ “A bit, yeah,” said James impatiently, glancing from him to Peter and back again. “But--” _

 

_ Without looking, Sirius reached up, balled his hand into a fist, and punched James’s knee. “Prongs, of course we said we’re in. Is there a world where we wouldn’t be? Come on. The name is fucking stupid, is all.” _

 

_ Lily sighed in relief and leaned over, nudging Peter’s shoulder with her own. Peter’s gaze had not lifted from the fire since he had sat down. “Pete?” asked Remus. _

 

_ “I’m all right,” said Peter, appearing to snap out of it. He shot Remus a smile that felt forced. “It’s just a lot to take in. But… if this is our best shot at making it out of this thing alive, then yeah. Like Padfoot said. I’m in.” _

 

***

 

By the time classes had resumed after the Easter holidays, Remus felt as if he were breaking up more scuffles between Gryffindors and Slytherins than he had ever had to during wartime. 

 

“It’s getting ridiculous!” Pomona Sprout huffed to Remus during breakfast on the Wednesday before the match. “Cedric had to pull apart a Gryffindor fourth year and a Slytherin sixth year, and now they’re both in the hospital wing with leeks coming out of their ears! It’s just a game, my goodness.” With a dramatic flourish, she sliced through her kipper. “I don’t know about you, but Potter has been late to all my classes this week, because Oliver Wood has ordered him tailed for his own protection. The boy clearly finds it more annoying than not, but there he is, surrounded by crowds of his classmates wherever he goes.”

 

Remus nodded but did not comment. He had noticed that, but he still hadn’t had a private conversation with Harry since he had confiscated the map from him.

 

Pomona went on, “And heaven knows that tension is bleeding over into their academics. Did you hear about Hermione Granger?”

 

“No,” said Remus, going still. “Is she all right?”

 

“Oh, I’m sure she’s quite all right,” said Pomona, as they both glanced towards the Gryffindor table to where Hermione was sitting with Harry and Ron, a book propped open against the jug of pumpkin juice in front of her. “But she lost her temper with Sybill Trelawney, called her subject useless, and stormed out of class. Minerva told me.”

 

Remus felt himself relax as he laughed for the first time in what felt like days. “That’s one way to drop a class, I suppose.”

 

“Indeed,” sniffed Pomona, but Remus could see her smile.

 

They ate in silence for a few moments, before Remus asked, “Has there been any development with Hagrid’s case? The hippogriff?”

 

“None that I’m aware of,” Pomona sighed. “There’s to be an appeal, but… from what I understand, that’s more of a formality. Do you remember Walden Macnair?”

 

Again, Remus stiffened. “I do, yes.”

 

_ “Now then,” Macnair sneered from behind his Death Eater mask, his grip tightening around Peter’s neck as his glittery eyes darted from Marlene to Remus to Lily, “what do we have here?” _

 

Pomona sniffed. “Well, he’s the executioner for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.”

 

Remus swallowed hard. “I see.”

 

Perhaps Pomona noticed his stiffness, and guessed the reason for it, because she patted his hand once before they both had to get up and leave for class.

 

The morning of the match dawned bright and clear, and as Remus watched the sun rise, he wished more than he ever had before that James was still alive. Remus knew what it would have meant to James, to be able to watch his son play in his first Quidditch cup final.

 

The Gryffindor team entered the Great Hall that morning to thunderous applause, and Remus smiled as he watched Harry walk in sandwiched between George and Oliver. Cedric, Remus saw, led several Hufflepuff students in a standing ovation as the Gryffindor team members took their seats at their own table. 

 

When it became time to head down to the pitch, Remus made a sudden decision to not sit in the faculty box. He didn’t think he could face Minerva and her attempts to regain his trust, whatever that meant. Especially not after that night in the forest.

 

Remus shrugged off the memory and headed up into the first staircase to the stands he saw, swept up in the crowd of yelling, laughing students. When he surfaced from the stairwell, it took him a moment to orient himself, given that a good three quarters of the crowd pouring in was wearing Gryffindor scarlet. 

 

“Professor Lupin!” he heard someone shout from behind him, and he turned to see Rinko Fujimoto and Daisy Kelly waving at him from within a cluster of other Hufflepuff fifth and sixth years, the whole lot of them in scarlet and gold. “Come sit!”

 

Remus climbed awkwardly up the stands until he he reached their groups. “Thank you. Hello, all.” He took the free seat closest, beside Cedric Diggory. 

 

“Hi, sir,” a few of the students chorused, before resuming the spirited conversations that they’d been wrapped up in before he had appeared.

 

“So,” Remus said to Cedric, raising his eyebrows at the boy’s gold and scarlet scarf, “you’ve all chosen sides.”

 

Cedric snorted. “Of course we have. After the way Flint’s played this season? Some of the worst sportsmanship I’ve ever seen.”

 

“I suppose I’m… surprised, is all,” said Remus. “After…” 

 

“After what went on after our match against Gryffindor in November?” Cedric shrugged. “Look, if my Seeker was thirteen and the smallest person on my team, and he fell off his broom, I wouldn’t be that charitable afterward either. And anyway, I really don’t blame Fred for holding that grudge for so long.”

 

“Really?”

 

“We used to date,” said Cedric, lowering his voice as he shrugged. “Or we tried to. Lasted about five minutes. But I don’t think he was ready to come out to his whole family yet.”

 

“I see,” responded, Remus, and said nothing else as the stands filled around them. Across the field, Remus could see where the Slytherins had staked out their own portion of the stands. A solid mass of green and silver seemed to move as one, but Remus did manage to catch sight of Snape sitting in the very front row, proudly wearing his House colors.

 

At eleven o’clock exactly, Lee Jordan’s voice boomed through the pitch, courtesy of his magical megaphone. “Welcome, Hogwarts! Welcome to the final match of the Quidditch Cup!” The stadium roared back at him, and next to Remus, Cedric and his friends applauded and cheered furiously. “Let’s bring out the teams!” shouted Lee.

 

Oliver led his team out first, to more thunderous applause and Lee’s narration. “And here are the Gryffindors! Potter, Bell, Johnson, Spinnet, Weasley, Weasley, and Wood. Widely acknowledged as the best team Hogwarts has seen in a good few years, Gryffindor got off to a rough start this season, but has made a comeback that defies even the most cynical of bet-makers!”

 

From this distance, Remus mused, Harry could easily pass as James. For once, the thought did not flood him with melancholy, but rather caused a small smile to float to his face. God, James would be so proud of him.

 

“And here come the Slytherins, led by Captain Flint!” called Lee, and Remus shifted his gaze to watch Marcus leading his team out. “He’s made some changes in the lineup, and seems to be going for size rather than skill! An interesting choice, to be sure, but not the first time such a judgment call has been made.”

 

Madam Hooch called for the captains to shake hands, and then blew her whistle. As one, fourteen brooms rose into the air, and they were off. 

 

After not even five minutes of play, and only one goal scored, the first two fouls were committed. Flint crashed into Angelina, and Fred responded by chucking his bat at the back of Flint’s head. Marcus’s nose slammed into his own broomstick, and when he looked up, it was clearly broken. “Shit,” hissed Cedric as booing erupted all through the pitch. 

 

“Sets the tone, though, doesn’t it?” asked Remus dryly, and Cedric, Rinko, and Chris Abernathy all looked at him with wide, shocked eyes before bursting into laughter. Remus swallowed his own smile and reminded himself to keep his jokes to himself. 

 

A tense silence settled over the crowd as Alicia faced off against Miles Bletchley. Her hand was a blur as she took the penalty shot, and she was met with cheers as Lee shouted, “Yes! She’s beaten the Keeper! Twenty-zero Gryffindor!”

 

Oliver blocked Flint’s penalty shot, and normal play resumed. Remus’s eyes sought out Harry, where the boy was zooming back and forth high above normal game play. “Don’t catch it yet,” Cedric muttered, and Remus glanced to the side to see that Cedric was also watching the boy.

 

“Why not?” asked Daisy before Remus had to. 

 

“Because if he catches the Snitch too early, Gryffindor will win the match but they’ll lose the cup. Slytherin is beating them by two hundred points total, so they have to win by at least two hundred ten today to take the Cup.”

 

“That’s stupid,” said Rinko. “Why can’t the winner of this match just take the cup?”

 

But she was smiling as she said it, and the exaggerated nature of Cedric’s eye roll told Remus that this was an argument that they’d had at least once before. “Because it doesn’t work that way, Rinko. God.”

 

Moments later, Warren Montague fouled Katie Bell, who took a penalty shot and scored. Remus shook his head, amazed. Two of the three goals thus far in the game had been penalties.

 

“No -- don’t do it!” Cedric suddenly muttered, and Remus followed his gaze to where Harry had suddenly pivoted to speed towards the Slytherin goalposts, Draco Malfoy hot on his heels, But just as it became apparent that Harry hadn’t seen the Snitch at all, both Slytherin Beaters knocked bludgers towards him. When they failed to make contact, the Beaters themselves flew straight at Harry, clubs raised. Remus lurched to his feet, his heart in his throat. 

 

But Harry, leaving it to the last minute with a dramatic flair that would have made his father proud, turned his broom up and left Derrick and Bole with no option but to crash into each other. 

 

Remus eased back into his seat, relieved, as Cedric shook his head. “Come on, Marcus,” he groaned, glaring up at Flint. “Do better.”

 

The game moved on, peppered with more fouls than normal game play, and Remus kept his eyes fixed on Harry, watching the boy circle so far up.

 

_ “Come on, Potter!” Sirius shouted, his hands cupped around his mouth so that his voice would carry over the rest of the cheers emanating from the stands. “Don’t fuck this up!” _

 

_ “Nobody likes a heckler,” Marlene scolded absently, not moving from her seat between Lily and Peter as she continued to flip through her copy of  _ Witch Weekly.

 

_ “Nobody likes killjoys who don’t watch the game, either,” Sirius retorted without looking at her. Lily caught Remus’s eye and nodded towards the front row of the stands, where they could lean against the guardrail rather than sit. He grinned, and unnoticed by any of their friends, the two of them slipped away. _

 

_ The game had been going for about twenty minutes by then, and Ravenclaw was winning, twenty to ten. The whole school, it seemed, with the exception of the Slytherins, was relieved that the final match-up was not Gryffindor and Slytherin. The castle had seen too much violence already. But this was James’s last chance to captain his team to a Quidditch cup before he graduated, and he’d been nearly insufferable over the last few days.  _

 

_ Lily wedged space for herself and Remus among the other students leaning against the guardrail, just in time for her to cheer loudly as James scored on the Ravenclaw Keeper. “Go, James!” _

 

_ It wasn’t until later, much later, that Remus would look back on that day and recognize it for what it was -- the last day that any of them had really been able to forget to worry about anything. _

 

“Yes!” Cedric shouted, jumping to his feet as Harry streaked up the field alongside Angelina, diffusing the entire Slytherin team attempting to block her goal. When Angelina scored on Bletchley, the roar of the crowd was so loud that the sound of the bell was drowned out. “She scores!” screamed Lee into his megaphone. “She scores! Gryffindor leads by eighty points to twenty!”

 

“Come on, Harry,” muttered Remus. “You can do this.”

 

Then Cedric, who had never resumed his seat, stood up even straighter and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Harry, look round!  _ Look round!” _

 

Whether or not the boy heard Cedric, Remus didn’t know, but Harry suddenly pivoted in mid air and dove. His trajectory was almost completely vertical as he chased after Draco, and Remus watched his heart in his throat, as the boy hurtled towards the ground --

 

“Pull up, pull up, pull up -- holy shit!” Cedric gasped, as Harry emerged from his dive, his fist thrust into the air, the tiny Golden Snitch clearly beating its wings uselessly against his hand. “Holy shit! I can’t believe it!”

 

Remus slumped back in his seat, adrenaline coursing through his body, as he watched all of Harry’s teammates swarm him in midair, wrapping him up into a massive group hug. Cedric and his friends, and the rest of the scarlet-robed crowd, flooded from the stands down onto the pitch, as the Gryffindor team slowly drifted towards the ground, refusing to let go of each other.

 

Remus didn’t move. He had to blink the tears from his eyes as he watched Harry, borne on the shoulders of the crowd along with the rest of his teammates, accept the Quidditch cup from Oliver and hoist it into the air.

 

_ “Look at him go!”  _

 

_ James was roaring with laughter as Harry zoomed around the sitting room on the toy broomstick that Sirius had sent for his birthday. The baby giggled hysterically as Remus pulled his shins in tight for fear of colliding with them.  _

 

_ Harry took a corner too fast and tumbled to the carpet, but he was apparently completely unfazed by the few inches he had fallen and immediately pulled himself back up onto the broomstick, and then he was off again. _

 

_ “Just look, Moony,” said James, a huge grin still fixed on his face. “He’ll be a great Quidditch player one day. Just you watch.” _


	16. Final Examinations

Exam season rolled over the castle in a heavy fog of sunshine, humidity, and anxiety. The OWLs and NEWTs were held in the midst of May, and were scheduled to conclude the week before the exams for the rest of the students began. Most of April found Remus immersed in almost daily review. The NEWT students had taken to occupying Remus’s classroom on the nights that the OWL review sessions did not meet, but they seemed adamant in their refusal to ask Remus for help. Oliver Wood steadfastly rejected Remus’s offer to lead a summary of the two NEWT curriculum years.

“We have this, sir,” he said firmly, as Remus poked his head into the classroom from his office one evening. Annabelle Rothschild barely looked up from what she was scribbling on the chalkboard, and behind her, Marcus Flint leaned across the aisle as Leanne Edwards explained something to him from her own desk. “We’ve divided the topics up, and everybody is responsible for presenting one. We have this. We really do.”

The OWL students were no less passionate, however less organized they looked in comparison. The energy was frenetic in the room as the days before the OWL wound down, and students kept missing sessions as they got wrapped up in last-minute studying for other exams. Defense Against the Dark Arts came in the middle of the exam calendar, and the Sunday before found Remus sitting in the back of his own classroom, arms folded over his chest, holding in his laugh as Fred Weasley, arms spread wide, stood atop the teacher’s desk and shouted the definition of the Shield Charm into the room at large.

 

“They create a magical barrier to deflect physical entities and spells in order to protect a certain person or area!” he yelled, screwing his eyes shut tight. “Conjurations may sometimes rebound directly off of it back towards the caster or, in other cases, may ricochet off in other directions or dissipate as soon as they hit the shield! Incantation is _Protego!_ ” He finished with a flourish and leapt off the desk to thunderous applause.

 

“Okay great,” called Angelina, who had been checking the definition against the flash card in her hand. She tossed the card into the growing pile on the floor beneath her desk and drew the next one from her stack. “Adri. You’re up.”

 

Adriana Archer stood up and sauntered up the aisle to the teacher’s desk, her friends slapping her back as she went. She climbed up onto the teacher’s chair and from there ascended to the desktop, cracking her fingers. “I’m ready.”

 

The room watched Angelina with bated breath as she skimmed the card in her hand. When she looked up at Adri, her eyes were sharp. “Jelly-legs Jinx!”

 

“She got an easy one!” interjected Fred indignantly, but preemptively ducked when Adriana knelt and prepared to throw a crumpled-up ball of paper at him. Tossing her hair over her shoulder, Adri straightened back up and braced her hands on her hips.

 

“Spell that causes the victim’s legs to collapse, and the incantation is _Locomotor Wibbly_.”

 

Remus joined in the applause for her as she descended from his desktop. He then stood, stretching one arm and then the other across his chest. “Nicely done, all of you. But I’ll have to call a halt to it for the night, as it’s almost fifth-year curfew.” Over their groans, he continued, “We’ll of course be continuing review in class tomorrow, and we have another review session on Thursday night. But none of you will be able to be there if you get detention.”

 

“We got eight prefects in the room,” Miles Bletchley called out. “What do you want to bet we can get them to say it’s okay if we keep working?”

 

“It’s _not_ okay if we keep working,” said Cedric promptly, rolling his eyes and reaching over to shove Miles’s feet down from where they were propped up on his desktop. “Get out of here. Go study for Charms, ‘cause fuck knows you need it.”

 

“Why’d you have to call me out like that?” Miles grumbled amidst the laughter and shuffle that always accompanied the students packing up. Chris Allanwood squatted down beside Angelina and helped her collect her discarded flash cards.

 

Remus smiled as he stood and moved to hold open the classroom door for them, nodding at each of the students who thanked him on their way out. As Cedric herded out the stragglers, Remus reached out and clapped him on the shoulder. “Good night, Cedric.”

 

“Thank you, sir,” the boy responded, finding a tired smile for Remus.

 

As the students filtered down the hallway, the cloud of chatter fading as they dispersed, Remus shoved his hands into his pockets. The prefects -- especially the fifth years -- were really asked to take on too much, he mused. Cedric and the others shouldn’t have had to carry the responsibility of castle security in addition to trying to get through their exams.

 

_“Security is tightening,” said Professor McGonagall, peering over her square spectacles to survey all six of the Gryffindor prefects crowded into her office. It was their first meeting with their head of house since Remus’s sixth year had begun two days ago. Remus felt Lily shift her weight beside him so that her shoulder brushed against his. The two seventh year prefects exchanged glances, while the fifth years just looked scared._

 

_“What this means for you all,” McGonagall continued, “is longer curfew patrol hours, as well as additional patrol shifts during such events as Quidditch games. At no point will you be asked to patrol outside the castle; I have had word from the head of the Auror office that he will have his Aurors exercising constant vigilance through their patrols of the grounds and of Hogsmeade.”_

 

_She went on, “You all also need to know that both myself and Professor Dumbledore will be absent from the castle more than usual this year. When this happens, you will assume a degree of higher responsibility for House discipline.”_

 

_“Please, Professor,” said Patricia Llewellyn, one of the seventh years. “Where will you be? When you leave the castle?”_

 

_McGonagall studied her for a moment. “I’m afraid I cannot tell you, Patricia. I can assure you, however, that if it were not desperately important, I would not leave you here alone.” She looked them all over again. “I need to know that I can count on you to keep each other, as well as all of Gryffindor House, in good order. None of you are stupid. You are all aware that there is something of a war brewing outside this castle. You were all selected as prefects based on your ability to be compassionate, effective leaders. It is times like these that test those leadership qualities. I need to know that I can count on all of you.” She paused. “And you all need to know that I trust you, utterly.”_

 

_Again, she cast her gaze over all of them. “If none of you have any questions, that’s all I have for you. I know you all have studying to do.”_

 

_“Yes, Professor,” a few of them murmured, and as a group they headed for the door. Once they were back in the corridor, Lily wordlessly linked her arm with Remus’s._

 

_“You all right?” he asked her, quietly, hanging back to allow the others to pass them._

 

_She shook her head, keeping her eyes fixed forward. “I hate this, Remus.”_

 

_“We all do.”_

 

_“No, I mean…” Lily reached up and tucked her red hair behind her ear. “McGonagall was talking about this like it’s just an exterior threat. Like it hasn’t already gotten into the castle.” She paused, and Remus knew that they were both thinking about what Mulciber and Lestrange had done to Jacob Franklin at the end of the last school year._

 

_They walked in silence to the end of the corridor. As they began to ascend the staircase, Remus asked her, “Has Sirius told you what happened to him this summer?”_

 

_She nodded. “Yeah. It was… the saddest I’ve ever seen him. And the fact that… his parents disowned him because he was hanging about with his own cousin, who they’ve decided is a blood traitor because she fell in love with a Muggleborn? That proves it, doesn’t it?”_

 

_“Proves what?”_

 

_Lily chewed on her lip for a moment, then burst out, “That this isn’t about external attacks!” Her hair came untucked from behind her ear as she spun to face him, her green eyes bright and full of a fear that twisted Remus’s gut. “It’s about him -- You-Know-Who --  saying all this… horrible, bigoted, racist shit, and promising the purebloods that he can build a better world for them, and that anyone who isn’t with him is looking to take purebloods down! Anyone would be lucky to have Sirius as a son, and they just throw him away because he chooses to see the good in people and not just -- assume that some people are more worthy of his time than others because of fucking blood status!”_

 

_Remus untucked his arm from her elbow and instead pulled her in for a hug as they came to a halt in the middle of the corridor. “I know,” he mumbled as he felt her breathing hard._

 

_“I’m scared, Remus,” Lily whispered, sliding her arms around his waist. “For myself. For you. I’m scared of what he’s turning us all into.”_

 

_“I know,” Remus said again, looking over her shoulder and out the window into the starry black sky. Her shoulders shook under his hands._

 

_Eventually Lily released him and briskly brushed at her eyes, and Remus chose not to comment on how red they were. Silently, they began walking again._

 

_After a few moments, Lily dug her elbow into Remus’s side. “But if you ever tell Black that I said that anyone would be lucky to have him as a son, I’ll murder you in your sleep.”_

 

_Remus laughed. “I had assumed, yeah.”_

 

***

 

“All right, everyone,” Remus called out, striding two steps up the marble staircase so he could see all his OWL students. They turned their faces, pale with nerves, up to him, and he saw Rinko Fujimoto nervously shift her weight from foot to foot. “You’re all extraordinarily well-prepared. There’s nothing you do in there that will be anything less than your best.” He smiled out at all of them, some small part of his brain wondering if he had been this nervous before his own exam eighteen years ago. “Now. Everyone good? Does anyone need to run for a quick drink of water or anything? You’re provided with quills and ink inside…”

 

A low rumble of negation rippled through the group. Lee Jordan, shaking his dreadlocks out of his face, bit his lip nervously.

 

“Then… I supposed that’s all I have for you,” said Remus, spreading his hands slightly before dropping them to his sides. “You’ll all do brilliantly.”

 

“Thank you, sir!” shouted George Weasley from the back of the group, and a chorus of thanks rose through the crowd until they were cheering. Laughing, Remus applauded along with them. Angelina Johnson reached out and grabbed Alicia Spinnet’s hand, squeezing it tightly.

 

“That’s quite enough noise out here!” a sharp voice scolded them, and they all looked over at the threshold of the Great Hall to see the tiny form of Griselda Marchbanks scowling at them. Her face softened when they quieted almost immediately, and Remus saw more than one student take one last deep breath. “Well then, dears,” said Madam Marchbanks, standing to the side, “We’re ready for you. Please enter the examination hall.”

 

“Good luck, all of you.” Remus tucked his hands into his pockets and watched as they slowly shuffled into the Great Hall. Daisy Kelly glanced back and twitched her hand at him one last nervous half-wave, and he shot her what he hoped was an encouraging smile.

 

As the door fell shut behind the students, Remus heard a voice at the top of the marble staircase behind him. “It’s been years since I’ve walked my students down into the exam.”

 

He turned and watched Minerva slowly descend the staircase towards him. He did not speak. The ground between them was still tender, but he knew how important it was that he have her support if he was going to remain in the castle for any real length of time.

 

“Do you think they’re prepared?” asked Minerva as she came to stand beside him, surveying the closed doors with him.

 

He sighed. “I do, yeah. They’ve put a lot of work in. I’m proud of them.”

 

“You should be.” She nodded approvingly. “It matters to them that you respect them, Remus. I’m glad they have you -- especially after the disaster that was last year.”

 

Remus hummed but said nothing as he began making his way back up the staircase. Minerva followed him. “I have some news,” she said, and Remus noted the change in her tone from lighthearted and conversational to more grim. “Scrimgeour has decided to pull his Aurors from even a nominal presence near the castle.”

 

Remus schooled his face to keep still. “Why?”

 

“A series of alleged sightings through the West Midlands and Worcestershire. The search is being redirected there. Scrimgeour and Robards seem to think that Black may make his way into Wales, and from there to Ireland.”

 

Remus did not reply right away, but he knew, as much as he could ever be certain of anything, that Sirius was not going to Ireland. There was no reason for him to do that. He was still here. Remus didn’t know why, but Sirius was here.

 

“I see,” was all he said.

 

“Remus --” she reached out and touched his elbow, and reluctantly he turned to face her. Her expression was earnest, and her eyes seemed more vulnerable than usual behind those square spectacles. “What can I do? How can I make this right?”

 

He shrugged, casually stepping away from her hand. “There’s nothing to make right, Minerva. Now -- if you’ll excuse me -- I do have a class of first-years starting in a few minutes.”

 

He left her standing there halfway up the marble staircase, and could feel her watching him as he rounded a corner on the first floor. It wasn’t even that Minerva had essentially accused him of treason, although he did still feel nauseous whenever he thought of that. It was more that she hadn’t _listened_. He had tried to tell her about what he was growing more certain of every day -- that Sirius would never have betrayed James and his family to Voldemort, that they were all missing something -- and she hadn’t listened. Minerva McGonagall had never seemed, to Remus, someone who accepted one version of events just because it was easy, he thought angrily as he paced through the castle. And the fact that she wasn’t even willing to consider the possibility now hurt him more than he had been willing to admit at the time.

 

He shook the thought off as he pushed open the door of his own classroom. His first year students’ chatter -- nervous now, so close to their first year of Hogwarts exams -- slowly faded as he made his way to the beginning of the room, and he smiled at all of them as he took his customary perch on the edge of his desk. “Hello, everyone,” he greeted them, smiling as they chorused “Hello” back at him. He clapped his hands together once. “We only have one more week until the exam, don’t we? Let’s get started.”

 

***

 

Midnight on Wednesday a week later found Remus out in a corner of the grounds, shirtsleeves rolled up, as he squinted in the dim light of the waxing moon. He had struggled for weeks with the idea of writing a comprehensive exam for his third years, who had studied nothing but Dark creatures all year, before it occurred to him that the only real way to test them was to run them through an obstacle course.

 

He was knee-deep in a marshy patch of his own making, squishing his way through it to ensure that it was deep enough for the Hinkypunk to conceal itself. Satisfied, and with no small amount of effort, he dragged himself out onto solid land again and proceeded a few feet south. He pointed his wand at a patch of ground and, with a muttered charm, watched a shallow, wide hole dig itself into the dirt. As the loose earth slowly shifted, Remus’s thoughts began to wander, and he found himself gazing out over the lake. The lone beech tree still stood at its shore.

 

_“So. What’s up?” Lily asked as she flopped down beside Remus, then leaned back against the trunk of the beech tree. The setting sun made the lake before them look like smooth burnished copper. “Why’d you want to meet out here?”_

 

_“I didn’t want to be overheard.” Remus knew his voice was short, but he couldn’t look at her. He felt as if he was going to vomit, as if his insides were going to claw their way out of his throat. His breathing was harsh and uneven, and inside the pockets of his robes, his sweaty hands twisted and mangled the black fabric. But he kept his back ramrod straight._

 

_Lily studied him, eyebrows raised. “Okay…”_

 

_Remus gulped, twice, and kept his gaze fixed forward, ignoring the way the reflected orange sunlight felt almost as if it were burning his eyes. “I have something to tell you. And after I tell you, you might not want to be a prefect with me anymore.” Absently, he reached up to his chest and fingered the badge that he had been so surprised to find in his Hogwarts letter that summer. “And I’ll understand it if you do feel that way, but you can’t tell anyone…”_

 

_“Spit it out, Remus,” Lily interrupted, and Remus thought her voice sounded gentle._

 

_But still he hesitated, wanting to remember this, maybe the last moment that Lily was his friend._

 

_She nudged his shoulder with her own, and Remus took a deep breath. He forced the words out in a rush. “I’m a werewolf.”_

 

_He felt her go completely still beside him, and braced himself. Any moment now, she would leap up, and scramble away from him, and call him a monster, and run --_

 

_“Okay,” said Lily, and she seemed so calm. “Is this... a new thing, or…?”_

 

_He shook his head jerkily. “I was bitten when I was five.”_

 

_“So then… this is something you’ve been dealing with for a while?” she asked, the words coming slowly._

 

_Some vague part of Remus’s brain registered that she was still sitting so close beside him. She hadn’t run, not yet. “Something like that, yeah,” he answered her, hesitant. He still couldn’t bring himself to look at her. “Every month, Madam Pomfrey walks me to a… there’s a safe location set up in Hogsmeade, and I just go there and kind of… wait it out, I suppose.”_

 

_“Huh,” said Lily, and then she was silent for another few minutes. Remus sat, completely rigid, and waited._

 

_Eventually, Lily spoke again. “Who else have you told? I wouldn't want to accidentally… you know…” she gestured vaguely with her hand. “Say something to the wrong person.”_

 

_“I’ve never really… told anyone,” he admitted, and thought he felt his breath come a little easier. She hadn’t shoved away from him yet, at least. “James and Sirius and Peter… they worked it out for themselves back in second year. And Dumbledore told the rest of the teachers when I started here, I think.”_

 

_“Oh,” Lily said, and Remus was finally able to turn to face her. Her eyes were wide, and though she looked surprised, she didn’t seem… disgusted with him. She bit her lip, thinking, and again Remus waited. “So the Head Boy and Girl don’t know?”_

 

_Remus shrugged, still watching her warily. “I haven’t told them. I don’t know if Dumbledore has, but I don’t think so.”_

 

_“Okay then,” said Lily, businesslike, and she tossed her hair over her shoulder. “So then if they ever schedule you for patrols on a night that you… can’t do it, or whatever, just let me know and we’ll switch, all right?”_

 

_A lump seemed to be forming in Remus’s throat. “Lily…”_

 

_Her eyes softened, and she slowly reached out and extracted his right hand from his pocket. The backs of Remus’s eyes burned from something other than the reflected sunlight as he watched her hand wrap gently around his fist. “I’m sorry that… that you thought you had reason to think that I would… I don’t know…” With her free hand she made the vague gesture again. “But I’m not going to tell anyone. And of course I still want to be a prefect with you.”_

 

_“Really?” he whispered._

 

_She squeezed his hand. “Yeah. Really.”_

 

_Lily sat quietly beside him, the two of them watching the surface of the lake change from a brilliant orange to a murky brown as the sun disappeared behind the mountain range that ringed the castle. She didn’t ask him any more questions, and Remus was afraid to try to speak again around the lump in his throat._

 

_Finally, once the sun had disappeared entirely and the surface of the lawn was lit up by jewel-like squares of lamplight radiating from the castle windows, Lily shivered. “Come on. I’m cold, and I could use your help with the reading McGonagall set.” She got to her feet and hoisted her bag over her shoulder, then looked at Remus expectantly._

 

_“Yeah.” He stood too, and scrubbed harshly at his eyes before grabbing his own bag. “Let’s go.”_

 

Remus smiled to himself as he turned back to the depression in the earth before him. “ _Aguamenti,_ ” he muttered, and watched as it slowly began to fill with water. Once he was satisfied with its depth, he performed another quick charm to prevent the pool from evaporating and then reached into his pocket. He sprinkled the spores for the algae that comprised the majority of a grindylow’s diet into the surface of the water, knowing that the pool would be filled with them by the time he began the exam in three days.

 

He stepped back and surveyed his handiwork. The ten-yard field of potholes had been sprinkled in cow’s blood that Hagrid had given him, so as to attract Red Caps. He had a hinkypunk on order from a magical creatures shop in Knockturn Alley, and expected to take delivery the next day, which would give the creature enough time to get used to the patch of swamp in the middle of the course. And there beyond the marsh was the bit of grass where he would set the trunk containing the boggart. He made a mental note to find another boggart to have on standby, just in case the first one died before all the students had run the course of the exam.

 

“Job well done,” he muttered to himself as he unrolled his sleeves and used his wand to clean the mud from the legs of his trousers. As he picked his cloak up from where he’d dropped it onto the ground and dragged it back over his shoulders, he went over his to-do list in his head. His exams for the first and second years were already written, but he made a mental note to submit his first-year exam to Minerva so that she could approve it as she approved all first-year exams administered in the castle. He still had to narrow down the practical portion of his exam for the fourth years, and he had to decide whether he wanted the sixth years’ theory exam to be written or oral. He was leaning towards oral, so that it would more closely mimic the NEWT exam that they would take next year.

 

As he rounded the castle, making his way to the door to the entrance hall, his gaze drifted towards the dark outline of the Forbidden Forest. He had not returned there, and the Marauders’ Map was currently buried at the bottom of his personal trunk. He didn’t know if he would ever take it out again. Without realizing it, he paused halfway up the drive to the castle steps, watching the tops of the trees sway innocently.

 

Sirius must have had a damn good reason, Remus thought, to commit to living as a dog in the Hogwarts Forbidden Forest for almost a year.

 

Shaking off the thought, he ascended the castle steps and went inside, refusing to look back.

 

***

 

“Any questions?” Remus asked his third years once he had finished explaining the premise of their exam to them. Nobody raised their hands, and their expressions ranged from nervous to excited. Seamus Finnigan looked downright giddy.

 

“All right, then,” Remus smiled, shrugging off his jumper and rolling up his shirtsleeves again under the glare from the sun. “Do I have volunteers to go first?”

 

The students shuffled about for a few moments before Dean Thomas raised his hand. “I will!”

 

“Excellent, Dean, thank you,” Remus said, motioning him forward. “The rest of you, please wait over there.”

 

The rest of the third years took up residence in the shade of some bushes on the shore of the lake, and Dean braced himself at the edge of the paddling pool. Remus scribbled Dean’s name at the top of a tally sheet. “Ready when you are, Dean.”

 

“Right.” Dean took a deep breath before splashing into the paddling pool, and then he was off.

 

Remus strode alongside the exam course as Dean dodged the grindylow, then hopped out of the pool and into the field of potholes where the Red Caps lurked. His classmates cheered him on, but he ignored them as he tripped his way through the second stage. But he fell into the patch of marsh, and the hinkypunk almost caught him before he managed to twist free. Finally, he emerged from the boggart trunk, looking shaken but pleased.

 

“Nicely done,” Remus congratulated him, marking his final tally on the clipboard. “Head over there, and send Hannah Abbott back over here.” He clapped Dean on the shoulder, and Dean grinned broadly at him before jogging over to the group by the lake.

 

For the most part the students did fairly well on the exam. Draco Malfoy was among the students who were more focused on appearing fearless and aloof to their peers than they were on completing the course well, and it cost him. The grindylow got a tight grip on Draco’s forearm that took almost five minutes to break, and later he was tripped up by a red cap. When he finally emerged from the boggart trunk, he looked pale, and shot Remus a filthy glare. Remus marked Draco’s final tally, and tried not to think about the hush that had descended the staffroom during Draco’s first lesson, when the boggart had transformed into the towering figure of Lucius Malfoy.

 

Eventually, Harry took his turn. “Whenever you’re ready,” Remus told him, quietly, and the boy did not look at him. Instead, face set in determination, Harry nodded once and jumped with both feet into the paddling pool. He expertly dodged the grindylow, twisting his wrist away at the last minute to avoid the creature getting a grip on his arm. Unscathed, he hopped out of the pool and immediately began darting forward, dodging potholes and Red Caps alike, perfectly. using the spark charm that Remus had taught them.

 

Harry sent a stinging hex at the hinkypunk as soon as it approached him, and it squeaked and left him alone for the rest of his passage through the marsh. Remus, full to bursting with pride, watched as Harry climbed without hesitation into the boggart trunk. Only a few moments passed, and Remus was almost sure he saw the white glow of a Patronus seep through the seams of the trunk lid, and then Harry emerged, beaming proudly.

 

“Excellent, Harry,” Remus told him as the boy approached him. “Full marks.”

 

The boy flushed with pride and muttered his thanks before rushing off to join the others, punching Ron Weasley’s shoulder as they passed each other so Ron could take his turn.

 

Ron did well, though not nearly as well as Harry, but he still look satisfied with himself at the end of the run. Then Hermione Granger stood for her turn. Remus, hiding his smile, prepared to award another set of full marks, and it looked as if he was going to. But at the very end, Hermione burst out of the boggart trunk, sobbing.

 

“Hermione!” Remus gasped, reaching out to catch her by the arms when it looked like she was going to trip back into the marsh. “What happened?”

 

“Professor McGonagall!” the girl gasped, slipping into what Remus recognized as a full panic attack. “She said I’d failed everything.”

 

“All right -- okay,” Remus muttered, dropping his clipboard and lowering Hermione so that she was kneeling on the ground. As he sat beside her, he saw Harry and Ron rushing forward, concern scrawled across both their faces. He gestured for them to hang back so as not to crowd her, and he took her hands in both of his own. “Hermione, it’s okay,” he whispered, in what he hoped was a soothing voice. “It was just a boggart.”

 

“She -- she said -- she said --” Hermione heaved, and Remus was worried for a moment that she would vomit as the tears continued to course down her face.

 

“It wasn’t her,” Remus interrupted her gently. “That wasn’t really Professor McGonagall. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

 

“She said I failed,” Hermione whispered, but there was less conviction in her voice as she wiped her nose on her sleeve. Remus kept hold of her other hand.

 

Remus ducked so he could meet her eyes. “Hermione Granger, listen to me,” he scolded her softly. “I know I’m not the first person to say that you’re the brightest witch of your age. There does not exist a universe in which you fail everything. Boggarts show you your worst fear. They don’t show you what’s rational. Yeah?”

 

“Yeah,” Hermione breathed, and wiped at her face again. Remus pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to her, and she took it with a wan, grateful smile.

 

“Good girl. Now. Deep breaths.” Remus waited while she dragged a deep, shuddering gulp of air into her body, and when she looked up she seemed calmer. With that, he squeezed her hand and beckoned Harry and Ron the rest of the way forward.

 

“You okay, ‘Mione?” Harry asked as he knelt beside her. Ron squatted on her other side, and between the two of them, they helped her to her feet. Remus stood with them.

 

Hermione looked up at him, embarrassed. “I’m sorry, sir.”

 

He waved a hand, something in his chest aching for her. “Don’t be. But do go inside and get some lunch, you lot.”

 

“Yes, sir,” they chorused, and Remus watched for a moment as the boys led Hermione back towards the castle.

 

Before they were out of sight, he turned back towards the few students remaining, and cleared his throat. There were mostly Ravenclaws still waiting, and Remus cleared his throat. “Lisa Turpin! Are you ready?”

 

The rest of the exam passed without incident, though Remus was secretly pleased that no one had bested Harry’s score. Lily would be so proud, he knew it.

 

He had just finished clearing up and was heading back to the castle for some much-needed lunch himself when he felt it again -- someone was watching him.

 

He froze halfway up the lawn, but did not look left or right. It was broad daylight, after all. Sirius wouldn’t dare do anything, not now, not when anyone could be looking out the windows.

 

“What do you _want_?” he hissed, too low for anyone to hear him. As usual, there was no reply.

 

Angrily, Remus shrugged his jumper back on and strode into the castle.

 

But in the entrance hall, he nearly stumbled to a stop again, because there walking towards him were Albus Dumbledore and Cornelius Fudge, trailed by an old man whom Remus did not recognize, and Walden Macnair.

 

Remus and Macnair locked eyes, and Remus swallowed hard. The last time he had seen those eyes, they had been glittering through a Death Eater’s mask as he and Remus duelled viciously, James had been lying, wounded and unconscious, a few feet away, and Remus had nearly been panicking, not knowing if James was even still alive, and Macnair had been laughing, and --

 

“Ah, Professor… Lupin, is it?” asked Fudge, smiling that broad smile that did not touch his eyes. “Just finished administering an exam, I see.”

 

“What? Oh --” Remus followed Fudge’s gaze to the clipboard loaded down with tally sheets. “Yes, sir.”

 

His heart was racing. Sirius was out there somewhere, he was close by, and Fudge was right there.

 

“Wonderful, wonderful,” murmured Fudge, glancing at Dumbledore, who surveyed Remus with those piercing blue eyes. “Well, you’ll have to excuse us… unpleasant business to attend to…”

 

“Of course,” Remus mumbled, and stood aside to let the group of them pass him. Dumbledore shot him another swift, searching look.

 

“Remus.”

 

“Sir.” Remus knew that they were going down for the hearing for Hagrid’s hippogriff, and he felt so helpless. He didn’t know what he could do -- what could even be done at all, if Dumbledore wasn’t going to stop the execution…

 

_“Well they all made a mistake!” Andromeda was shouting now. Remus watched as if through molten glass as she began to shake. “Sirius is not a Death Eater!”_

 

_Again, Dumbledore sighed. “The Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement has taken Sirius’s voluntary surrender to be an admission of guilt, and he has decided that there will not be a trial. Sirius is to be sent to Azkaban.”_

 

_Something fell away within Remus._

 

_“No! Sir -- you can’t --” Andromeda gasped. “You can’t let Crouch do that to him! You’re the head of the Wizengamot! Demand a trial for him!”_

 

_“Andromeda, I am deeply sorry. Truly.” Dumbledore reached a hand out toward her. “But the world has suffered for nearly ten long years now. If Sirius was the spy, then I see no reason to prolong this nightmare. We all deserve an ending. We all deserve to begin to heal.”_

 

Remus’s eyes narrowed as he watched them go, their shadows rippling across the lawn. The fact that Dumbledore would walk alongside a known Death Eater…

 

Abruptly Remus spun on his heel and strode towards the marble staircase, all thoughts of dinner forgotten. Enough, he decided. He had seen enough. Tonight, once darkness had fallen and it was safe, he was going to get the Marauders’ map back out. And he was going to find Sirius, he was going to Stun him if he had to, but either way, he was going to get the truth out of him. He was going to find out, finally, what had happened twelve years ago.

 

And maybe it was too late, he thought grimly as he moved unseeingly through the castle. Maybe he would get answers that he didn’t want. Maybe Sirius would kill him after all. But if that was what happened, then fine, because this had gone on for long enough.

 

It would end that night, Remus decided. It had to.

 


	17. Cat, Rat, and Dog

The hours that passed between the official conclusion of exams and the end of dinner were some of the longest that Remus had ever lived. He was going to crawl out of his skin, he thought grimly, as he scratched at his arm for the third time in twenty minutes. His gut churned with anxiety. Several times, his hand twitched towards his locked trunk, intent on withdrawing the map early, but each time he stopped himself. He wanted the grounds completely clear of students, he reminded himself. He wanted them all inside, and under curfew. Because despite everything, despite the answers he was so desperate to get from Sirius, Remus still had a responsibility towards his students, and he would not do anything to jeopardize any of them.

 

He did not go down to dinner, but instead, stood looking out of the window in his office, his back rigid, his arms crossed tightly across his chest. Slowly, his eyes combed the treetops of the Forbidden Forest, looking for something he wasn’t sure he could name. Sirius was out there somewhere, but there was no way that Remus would see him from his vantage point overlooking the forest. He knew this, but still he searched.

 

Twelve years. Twelve long, miserable years, full of questions he should have been asking and paths he should have been charging down. He owed Lily and James better. He owed Harry better. Hell, he owed himself better.

 

Remus snorted to himself. Better late than never, he supposed.

 

The sun had just begun to burn orange in its descent towards the treetops when Remus finally allowed himself to move. Slowly and deliberately, he unfolded his arms and turned towards his trunk. His hand fumbled with the keys on his ring, and somehow he managed to unlock the padlock. He shoved aside a sheaf of parchment and a wadded up jumper to withdraw the folded, aged map from the bottom of the trunk. He moved to his desk and unfolded the map, smoothing it out against the wood, and then he braced himself, pointing his wand at the faded yellow.

 

“ _I solemnly swear that I am up to no good._ ”

 

As ever, the black lines flowed from his wand tip across the parchment, crossing each other, filling in, spreading to all the corners and doubling back. Remus realized he was holding his breath as the small moving black dots began to populate the castle and grounds. He released a lungful of air slowly, preparing to scan the part of the map that represented the forest, to find where Sirius was hiding. But movement elsewhere on the page caught his eye.

 

“Damn it,” Remus hissed as he watched three dots, labelled _Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley,_ and _Hermione Granger_ respectively, dart from the entrance hall and hurry across the grounds. He knew from how close together they were walking that they had to be clustered under James’s Invisibility Cloak.

 

Remus didn’t dare move to confront Sirius when Harry of all students was out on the grounds. He would have to wait until Harry and his friends had gone back to the castle, he decided, and scanned the area of the map ahead of the quickly moving dots so as to guess where they were going. Hagrid’s hut. Of course. Hagrid’s hippogriff had probably lost its appeal, and was going to be executed as soon as --

 

Remus froze, his eyes fixed on the simple ink drawing of Hagrid’s hut. The dot labelled _Rubeus Hagrid_ sat motionless in the center of the hut, but it was not alone. A second dot, labelled _Peter Pettigrew,_ quivered just at the edge of the drawing.

 

Ice filled Remus’s lungs. It couldn’t be. It _couldn’t_ be…

 

_“I’m all right,” said Peter, appearing to snap out of it. He shot Remus a smile that felt forced. “It’s just a lot to take in. But… if this is our best shot at making it out of this thing alive, then yeah. Like Padfoot said. I’m in.”_

 

Peter was alive. He was at Hogwarts.

 

_“The words are always the same: ‘He’s at Hogwarts.’”_

 

Peter was here. He was alive, he was at Hogwarts. Sirius had come looking for _him_ , not Harry. But that meant… it had to mean…

 

 _Sirius looked over as Peter joined them once the dust had cleared from the duel, hoisting everyone’s bookbags. “And_ you _were useful.”_

 

_Peter shrugged and dropped the bags back on the floor. “You all had it under control.”_

 

Peter… little Wormtail, always hanging back, always the last person to take a risk, always the most concerned with survival rather than rebellion…

 

_James took a deep breath and ran his hand over his face, knocking his glasses askew. “Sirius went back to Orion and Walburga’s London house last night,” he began to explain. “He’d been with Andi and Ted and their kid. Orion didn’t like that. He wanted Sirius to say he’d never see Andi again, and--”_

_“Sirius, did you pick a fight with him?” Peter asked, exasperated._

 

Peter, always so concerned with being protected, with siding with the winner… with… with supporting his friends when he knew they would emerge victorious…  

 

_Dumbledore faced Andromeda Tonks, his face grave. “A few hours ago, Peter Pettigrew found Sirius in Muggle London and challenged him to a duel. From all accounts, Sirius cast a curse on him, the nature of which has yet to be determined. But Peter is dead, and the curse was powerful enough to kill twelve Muggle bystanders.”_

_A low sound, a desperate wail, escaped Remus’s lips as he collapsed, burying his head in his hands. This couldn't be happening, it couldn't be real, Sirius was going to bound through the door any minute now in that way he had, grinning, cuffing Remus about the head and laughing that it had all been a mistake._

 

_As if through water, he heard Andromeda raise her voice as she repeated her denials. “Sir, forgive me, but there must have been some sort of mistake! Sirius hates the Death Eaters. He hates everything they stand for. He would never join them, and he would certainly never try to kill Peter Pettigrew!”_

_“He surrendered to the arresting officers, Andromeda. He went quietly, without anything remotely approaching a fight,” Dumbledore said, somber._

 

Sirius had not surrendered after Voldemort had fallen. He had not surrendered after James and Lily died. He had only surrendered after he thought he had killed Peter.

 

Little shards of glass began to puncture Remus’s lungs even as his heart pounded in his chest. He staggered away from the desk and fell against the wall, breathing hard, feeling the bile creep up his throat. Peter was alive. And Sirius hadn’t-- Sirius hadn’t--

 

_“Whatever it takes, Prongs,” Sirius vowed, his voice barely audible above the crackling of the fire in the hearth in the little cottage in Godric’s Hollow. “You too, Lily. We’re all here. Whatever it takes to get us all through this.”_

 

_Lily reached out and touched his forearm, even as James refused to relinquish his hold on her other hand. “Sirius, you have to keep yourself safe, too,” she admonished gently. “All of you--” her gaze passed over Remus and Peter too, and Remus hated the tears dancing on her eyelashes. “I appreciate this, I really do, but I couldn’t stand it if--”_

_“If what?” Sirius demanded. “If we got hurt trying to keep you lot safe? I don’t want to speak for Moony or Wormtail, but you asked me to be the kid’s godfather.” He nodded at where Lily’s stomach sat high and proud with the weight of the baby. “I know what that means.”_

 

_“Anything, Lily,” Remus murmured in agreement. Peter gulped but nodded._

 

_“And if anything happens to any of you -- if someone hurts any of you--” Sirius wrenched away from Lily’s hand and began pacing. “God help them. That’s all I have to say.”_

 

Remus felt the adrenaline flood his body, drowning out the nausea. He had to get down there, he had to find Harry and his friends, he had to get them away from Peter, because Peter was --

 

But when Remus stumbled back to his desk and seized the map, he caught his breath in horror. The dot bearing Peter’s name was suddenly racing away from Harry and his friends where they stood clustered in the middle of the grounds. The dot labelled _Ronald Weasley_ sprinted away from Harry’s and Hermione’s dots -- after Peter. After only a moment of hesitation, the other two dots followed after Ron’s. Whether Peter was in his human or his Animagus form, Remus had no way of knowing, but he was sure it wouldn’t matter long if Peter got Harry alone--

 

“ _Shit_ ,” Remus hissed, grabbing his wand and preparing to bolt for the door. But before he could, yet another bit of movement in the map caught his eye. “Oh… no.”

 

A dot marked _Sirius Black_ was now racing towards the group -- that dot collided with Ron’s and Peter’s, and together the three of them moved quickly towards the Whomping Willow--

 

Remus didn’t wait any longer. He shoved away from his desk and ran out the door, his heart in his throat, clutching his wand tightly. He stumbled through his classroom and burst out into the corridor, and took off at a full sprint through the castle.

 

The distance from the Defense corridor to the entrance hall had never seemed as long as it did that night, and Remus felt his lungs burning as he shoved past the great oak doors and down the stone steps. His vision blurred as he circled the castle, heading for the Whomping Willow. He could barely see -- barely think --

 

And finally, there it was. The Willow’s branches were thrashing wildly about, clearly still agitated, but there was no sign of Harry and the others, or of Sirius or Peter. Frantically, Remus cast his eyes around until he spied a broken branch lying on the ground. He seized it, praying, and wove it through the creaking, groaning tree limbs until it prodded the knot at the base of the trunk. With a sigh of relief, Remus darted forward. Sirius was at the end of that tunnel… and Harry…

 

It seemed to take him forever to make his way down a tunnel that somehow felt smaller than it used to. The sounds of his own breath was loud in his ears, and he gulped, wincing at how dry his throat was. He hadn’t been down here since he was eighteen years old…

 

He felt like he had sprinted a mile by the time the tunnel began to slope up, and he stumbled the last few steps and burst into the Shrieking Shack. “ _Lumos,_ ” he whispered, and looked around.

 

He swallowed hard at the dust-covered wreckage that his wand light revealed. He had done that -- all of that -- so much destruction, because he couldn’t control himself…

 

He shook himself. There would be time enough for that later, but now--

 

Swallowing hard, his pulse pounding in his ears, Remus moved about the space, pointing his wand into dark corners, just to check.

 

“WE’RE UP HERE!” a girl’s voice screamed, and Remus flinched and pointed his wand up at the ceiling. “WE’RE UP HERE! SIRIUS BLACK! _QUICK_!”

 

“Hermione,” Remus whispered, and he sprinted up the staircase. The door at the end of the hall was shut, and Remus pointed his wand at it, blasting it open.

 

The air froze around him. He had only a glance to spare for Ron and Hermione -- just long enough to make sure that they were still alive. But he stared in horror at Harry -- at James Potter’s son -- burning fury in his face, pointing his wand at his godfather’s chest as Sirius lay in rags on the floor, both eyes blackened, refusing to defend himself.

 

Remus did the only thing he could think of. “ _Expelliarmus!_ ”

 

Harry’s wand flew out of his hand, as did Hermione’s, along with Ron’s, leaping from Hermione’s clenched fist. Remus caught them all and slowly advanced into the room. He couldn’t look away from Sirius -- Sirius, whose handsome face had turned waxen and shrunken in Azkaban, whose emaciated form did not rise from the floor even as Remus approached him. He looked as if he was dead. He _should_ have been dead.

 

The sound of Remus’s own heartbeat thundered in his ears as he forced himself to ask the question. “Where is he, Sirius?”

 

Sirius did not move, his lifeless gray eyes searching Remus’s own for the length of three heartbeats. Remus felt a gasp slip past his lips. God, this man couldn’t be Sirius -- this dead thing lying at Remus’s feet couldn’t possibly be--

 

But slowly, Sirius raised his hand and pointed a finger at Ron without dropping Remus’s gaze.

 

Remus grimaced and darted a glance at Ron. The poor boy looked so lost, so confused, but Remus didn’t have the time to comfort him or to explain, because Ron was clutching a hand over the breast pocket of his robes. Something -- some small animal -- was quivering and squeaking beneath the fabric, struggling to get free.

 

“But then…” Remus heard himself say as he faced Sirius again, swallowing hard. If Peter was alive… if Sirius hadn’t killed him, then… “...why hasn’t he shown himself before now?”

 

But even as he asked the question, he knew. Sirius hadn’t been the Secret Keeper, or if he had been, it hadn’t been for long. Of course Sirius hadn’t… Sirius would never…

 

“Unless _he_ was the one… unless you switched,” Remus whispered. “Without telling me?”

 

Remus saw Sirius swallow hard before he nodded.

 

All the air left Remus’s body in a rush. All this time… years, so many years of this. Of course it hadn’t been Sirius. Of course Sirius would never. Remus should have known, he should have --

 

Remus only vaguely heard Harry ask what was going on as he lowered his wand and strode over to Sirius, and reached out to grip his forearm. Remus hoisted Sirius upright and then pulled him into a hug.

 

An ominous prickling began behind his eyes, and he gripped Sirius’s shoulder, trying not to feel the frailty beneath his hands. He was aware that Sirius was embracing him too, and it was crashing over him in waves, the knowledge that Sirius had always been the person Remus had thought he was so long ago, that he had paid such a steep cost for a crime he had not committed -- that Remus in his silence had condemned Sirius, but that they were here now, he had his friend back, after all this time --

 

“I DON’T BELIEVE IT!” screamed Hermione.

 

Remus swallowed hard and released Sirius, turning to face Hermione. She was pale, wild, on the verge of tears as she pointed at him. “You-- you--”

 

He held up both of his hands to her, attempting to calm her. “Hermione--”

 

“You and _him_!”

 

“Hermione, calm down--” Remus felt Sirius shift beside him.

 

But Hermione was well into what Remus recognized as another panic attack. “I didn’t tell anyone! I’ve been covering for you--”

 

“Hermione, listen to me, please!” Remus hated shouting at her, but he didn’t know how else to make her hear him. “I can explain--”

 

This time it was Harry who cut him off. “I trusted you!” the boy cried, and Remus’s heart dropped when he heard Harry’s voice break. “And all this time you’ve been his friend!”

 

Remus shook his head, shifting his body between Sirius and the boy. “You’re wrong,” he said, fighting to keep his voice steady. “I haven’t been Sirius’s friend, but I am now. Let me explain--”

 

“NO!” shrieked Hermione, again cutting him off. She spun to face Harry, dashing impatiently at the tears in her eyes. “Harry, don’t trust him, he’s been helping Black get into the castle, he wants you dead too -- and he’s a werewolf!”

 

At that, the room fell silent. Remus could feel Sirius’s eyes boring into his head, but he did not turn to face him. Ron was horrified, but Harry just looked confused.

 

Remus forced himself to keep his face still. “Not at all up to your usual standard, Hermione. Only one out of three, I’m afraid. I have not been helping Sirius get into the castle and I certainly don’t want Harry dead.” He sighed, and braced himself. “But I won’t deny that I am a werewolf.”

 

Almost immediately, Ron tried to drag himself further away from Remus, but very nearly toppled over on what Remus now realized was a broken leg. Instinctively, Remus moved to help him, but Ron recoiled. “ _Get away from me, werewolf!_ ”

 

Remus froze. He hadn’t expected that, although some small part of his brain told him that he should have. Because this was it, wasn’t it? This was the risk. This was always the risk.

 

But he had bigger things to worry about at the moment. He mastered himself, then turned to Hermione.

 

“How long have you known?”

 

“Ages,” Hermione whispered, and Remus hated the fear in her face. “Since Professor Snape set the essay.”

 

Remus raised his eyebrows. “He’ll be delighted. He assigned that essay hoping someone would realize what my symptoms meant. Did you check the lunar chart and realize that I was always ill at the full moon, or did you realize that the boggart changed into the moon when it saw me?”

 

“Both,” Hermione said, her voice so small.

 

Remus laughed, although he wasn’t sure he’d ever been less amused in his life. “You’re the cleverest witch of your age I’ve ever met, Hermione.”

 

She shook her head. “I’m not. If I’d been a bit cleverer, I’d have told everyone what you are!”

 

“But they already know,” Remus shrugged. “At least the staff do.”

 

“Dumbledore hired you when he knew you were a werewolf?” Ron’s voice dripped with incredulity mixed with disgust. “Is he _mad_?”

 

“Some of the staff thought so.” It occurred to Remus on one level how very surreal it was to be having this conversation in this place, with these people present. “He had to work very hard to convince… certain teachers that I’m trustworthy--”

 

“AND HE WAS WRONG!” Harry shouted, and Remus flinched again. “YOU’VE BEEN HELPING HIM ALL THE TIME!”

 

Sirius almost seemed to fold onto himself. Before Remus could stop him, Sirius moved to the bed and sank down, holding a shaking hand to his face. Remus felt as if he was going to vomit -- how had they gotten here, how had they all gotten here, how had it all come to this--

 

He shook himself and faced the children again. He couldn’t afford to be overwhelmed, to now, not when they were so close. “I have _not_ been helping Sirius,” he said firmly. “If you’ll give me a chance, I’ll explain.” He paused, but Harry, Ron, and Hermione all remained silent, although Harry still was glaring at Remus through his betrayal.

 

Remus sighed, and knew there was nothing else for it. “Here.” He tossed their wands back to them, ignoring the surprise in their faces. He tucked his own wand into his belt and held up his hands. “You’re armed, we’re not. Now will you listen?”

 

Harry exchanged a quick glance with Hermione, then asked suspiciously, “If you haven’t been helping him, how did you know he was here?”

 

Remus shoved his fists into his pockets and sighed. “The map. The Marauders’ Map. I was in my office examining it--”

 

“You know how to work it?” Harry interrupted.

 

Remus twitched a hand impatiently. “Of course I know how to work it -- I helped write it. I’m Moony. That was…” He darted a look at Sirius, who still sat with his head in his hands. “That was my friends’ nickname for me at school.”

 

“You _wrote_ \--?”

 

“The important thing,” Remus cut Harry off, still marvelling at the horror that this was Harry’s history, his family, and Remus didn’t even have the time to explain it to him properly, not while everything else was such a goddamn mess, “is that I was watching it carefully this evening, because…” He scrambled around for a reason more acceptable than that he wanted to find Sirius and either exonerate or kill him. “Because I had an idea that you, Ron, and Hermione might try and sneak out of the castle to visit Hagrid before his hippogriff was executed. And I was right, wasn’t I?”

 

Unable to tolerate standing still any longer, unable to be so close to Sirius while his friend’s grief choked him, Remus began to pace. The anxiety, the fear, was clawing at him from inside, and all he wanted was to grab Peter, to force him to transform. But Harry deserved more than that.

 

God -- he would give anything to speak with Sirius alone, to sort this out with him, then take him to Dumbledore and then, only then, only after the truth had come out, would they summon Harry. The boy deserved an explanation, he deserved Remus’s rationality, but there was no time. There was no time, not anymore.

 

“You might have been wearing your father’s cloak, Harry,” he tossed out.

 

“How d’you know about the cloak?” demanded Harry.

 

Remus made a face. “The number of times I saw James disappearing under it… But the point is that even if you’re wearing an Invisibility Cloak, you still show up on the Marauders’ Map. I watched you cross the grounds and enter Hagrid’s hut.” Remus heard Sirius shift behind him, but did not meet his eyes. “Twenty minutes later, you left Hagrid, and set off back toward the castle. But you were now accompanied by someone else.”

 

“What?” snapped Harry, even as he glanced from Ron to Hermione. “No, we weren’t!”

 

Remus sighed, but continued as if Harry had not spoken. It had come to this, now, somehow. Twelve years of believing a lie, of sacrificing Sirius’s freedom and Harry’s childhood to that lie, and now they were here. “I couldn’t believe my eyes. I thought the map must be malfunctioning. How could he be with you?”

 

Harry glared. “No one was with us!”

 

But Remus couldn’t stop. “And then I saw another dot, moving fast toward you, labeled _Sirius Black_ … and I saw him collide with you. I watched as he pulled two of you into the Whomping Willow--”

 

“One of us!” Ron interrupted, shifting so as to alleviate some of the pain in his leg.

 

Remus exhaled slowly and looked up at him. “No, Ron. Two of you.” He paused, his eyes moving down to Wormtail, still fighting against Ron’s hold. “Do you think I could have a look at the rat?”

 

He was amazed by how calm his own voice sounded.

 

“What?” asked Ron, blankly. “What’s Scabbers got to do with it?”

 

 _Scabbers_. Remus almost laughed. He wondered if the rat had been given that name because Ron had found him when the wound on his paw was still healing. “Everything. Could I see him, please?”

 

Ron hesitated, but reached inside his robes. He extracted a gray common garden rat, one struggling desperately to escape, clawing at Ron’s hands. Remus could see, even as it thrashed about, that it was in fact missing a toe on its left front paw.

 

Without realizing it, Remus moved closer to Ron, staring at Peter. It was true, then. It was all true. After all this time…

 

“What?” Ron asked, defensive, clutching the rat closer to his chest. “What’s my rat got to do with anything.

 

“That’s not a rat.” Sirius spoke finally, looking up.

 

“What d’you mean? Of course he’s a rat--”

 

Remus shook his head, feeling his blood thunder through his veins. “No, he’s not. He’s a wizard.”

 

“An Animagus,” added Sirius, a smirk curling up the corner of his mouth. “By the name of Peter Pettigrew.”


	18. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs

“An Animagus. By the name of Peter Pettigrew.”

 

In the silence that followed Sirius’s words, Remus looked over at him where he was still seated on the edge of the bed. He hadn’t noticed before, but something had changed about the way Sirius held himself in stillness. The Sirius of before was always relaxed in stillness, eyes sharp and calculating, a great cat lazing about but always ready. This Sirius, the Sirius of after, was tensed, coiled, eyes wild. Remus let a slow breath out through his mouth.

 

Ron was the first to speak. “You’re both mental,” he declared, eyes darting back and forth between Remus and Sirius. 

 

“Ridiculous!” Hermione echoed faintly, but it was Harry who shouted. 

 

“Peter Pettigrew’s  _ dead! He _ killed him twelve years ago!” The boy gestured at Sirius, whose face twisted up in a snarl. 

 

“I meant to… But little Peter got the better of me.” He sneered, and for the first time since entering the room, it occurred to Remus to fear him. “Not this time, though!”

 

And before Remus could stop him, Sirius bolted across the mattress to where Ron’s broken leg had collapsed under him. Ron howled in pain as Sirius landed on him, clawing viciously at where the rat squealed in panic in Ron’s pocket. 

 

Remus leapt forward and hooked his arms around Sirius’s shoulders fighting against Sirius to drag him backwards. “Sirius, no! Wait!” Sirius twisted against Remus’s grip, and Remus tightened his arms, even as Ron whimpered, clutching at his leg with one hand while his other remained clamped tightly around the rat. “You can’t just do it like that -- they need to understand--” He fought the urge to wince as Sirius scratched viciously at his forearm. “We’ve got to explain!”

 

“We can explain afterwards!” Sirius bit the words off even as he thrashed against Remus’s hold. He managed to work one arm free and strained to reach for Ron, who tried to drag his broken leg and move even farther up the head, a look of horror fixed on his face. Out of the corner of his eye, Remus saw Harry shift as if to place his body between Ron and Sirius.

 

“They’ve got a right to know everything!” Remus snapped, still fighting to restrain Sirius. “Ron’s kept him as a pet! There are parts of it even I don’t understand!” He panted, feeling how dry his throat was as he gulped. “And Harry -- you owe Harry the truth, Sirius!”

 

Only then did Sirius still. He did turn away from the rat, but his shoulders were stiff beneath Remus’s hands. For a moment, the only sounds were the rat’s frantic squeaking. 

 

When Sirius spoke again, his voice was barely above a rough whisper. “All right, then. Tell them whatever you like. But make it quick, Remus. I want to commit the murder I was imprisoned for.” He shrugged out of Remus’s hold, and Remus let him go.

 

Remus did not argue the point. It had taken him a while for him to piece it together, but he knew that Peter deserved to die for what he had done to Sirius, to all of them. But Harry had been through enough, seen enough, and the very least that Remus could do was ensure that the boy understood why he was watching someone die.

 

“You’re nutters, both of you.” Ron’s voice shook even as he tried to stand. Remus saw Hermione twitch instinctively, as if she wanted to help him support his weight. “I’ve had enough of this. I’m off.”

 

Swallowing hard, Remus drew his wand and pointed it at the rat in Ron’s hand. He had no intention of using it, he would never, not with such a risk of hitting Ron himself, but they had all come too far and been through too much for Remus to let Ron walk out the door. 

 

He was surprised by how calm he managed to sound. “You’re going to hear me out, Ron. Just keep a tight hold on Peter while you listen.”

 

“HE’S NOT PETER, HE’S SCABBERS!” Ron shouted, but his raised voice only served to frighten the rat even more, and Ron’s hands were growing steadily more bloody as the rat scratched at them. This, finally, caused Ron to lose his balance on his bad leg, and he fell against Harry, who helped him back onto the bed. Remus had to fight down the instinct to rush to Ron, to draw his wand and mend his broken leg, but he knew how that would go -- he knew how Ron would react to a werewolf advancing on him, wand drawn.

 

Shaking, Harry turned to Remus. His jaw was set, and he seemed determined to ignore Sirius, to show no fear, even as his lip trembled. “There were witnesses who saw Pettigrew die. A whole street full of them--”

 

“They didn’t see what they thought they saw!” Sirius cut in, his sunken dead eyes still fixed firmly on Ron.

 

Remus sighed and nodded, and tried to answer Harry as calmly as possible, however much his heart was pounding in his chest. His joints ached from his struggle with Sirius, but he ignored the soreness. “Everyone thought Sirius killed Peter. I believed it myself, until I saw the map tonight. Because the Marauders’ Map never lies. Peter’s alive. Ron’s holding him, Harry.”

 

Harry and Ron exchanged a glance, but before either of them could respond, Hermione found her voice. “But Professor Lupin… Scabbers can’t be Pettigrew…” Remus hated the pleading note in her voice, like she was begging him not to upset the world that she knew as real. “It can’t be true, you know it can’t be…”

 

Remus took a deep breath, reminded himself that they all had a right to know and he would accomplish nothing by disregarding their very valid resistance, and asked, “Why can’t it be true?” He felt Sirius shift impatiently, and ignored him.

 

“Because…” Hermione shook her head. “Because people would  _ know _ if Peter Pettigrew had been an Animagus. We did Animagi in class with Professor McGonagall, and I looked them up when I did my homework, and the Ministry of Magic keeps tabs on witches and wizards who can become animals,” she babbled. “There’s a register showing what animal they become, and their markings and things. And I went and looked Professor McGonagall up on the register, and there have only been seven Animagi this century, and Pettigrew’s name wasn’t on the list--”

 

Remus started to laugh; he couldn’t help himself. This girl, this fourteen-year-old girl, not only put more effort into her research than wizards twice her age, but had such an unshakeable belief in systems of law and order that she couldn’t even account for the fact that she now had proof that Sirius Black was an Animagus, and certainly not registered. “Right again, Hermione! But the Ministry never knew that there used to be three unregistered Animagi running around Hogwarts--”

 

“If you’re going to tell them the story, get a move on, Remus,” Sirius hissed. When Remus turned to face him, Sirius still had his eyes fixed on the rat. “I’ve waited twelve years. I’m not going to wait much longer.”

 

Remus felt a sudden, bizarre urge to laugh again. It was fitting, in an odd way, that Sirius’s infamous impatience was surfacing now. “All right,” he conceded, “but you’ll need to help me, Sirius. I only know how it began--”

 

But he was interrupted again, this time by a loud creak coming from behind him as the bedroom door swung open. Sirius’s head snapped around on his neck as he eyed it suspiciously, and before he could do anything foolish, Remus raised his wand again and moved to the threshold. 

 

His wandlight illuminated the narrow hallway clear to the staircase, and nothing moved. He thought he heard a slight rustle, but he twitched his wand so that even the corners of the landing were lit up. Still nothing. “No one there,” he reassured Sirius.

 

“This place is haunted,” moaned Ron, his face chalky with fear. 

 

“It’s not,” said Remus absently, slowly backing away from the threshold, inspecting it one last time before he turned back to face the others. “The Shrieking Shack was never haunted. The screams and howls the villagers used to hear were made by me.” He met Sirius’s eyes briefly, and for a moment Sirius looked almost human again in a flash of sympathy. “That’s where all of this starts,” Remus continued. “With my becoming a werewolf. None of this could have happened if I hadn’t been bitten. And if I hadn’t been so foolhardy.”

 

He heard Sirius growl low in the back of his throat, and knew it was Sirius’s ever-present urge to argue. He ignored him.

 

“I was a very small boy when I received the bite,” he began. “My parents tried everything, but in those days there was no cure. The potion that Professor Snape has been making for me is a very recent discovery.” He met Harry’s fierce, focused eyes, and wondered if the boy remembered how he had once warned Remus that Snape would try to poison him, given half the chance. “It makes me safe, you see. As long as I take it in the week preceding the full moon, I keep my mind when I transform. I am able to curl up in my office, a harmless wolf, and wait for the moon to wane again.”

 

He took a moment to roll his head around on his neck, and remember. “Before the Wolfsbane Potion was discovered, however, I became a fully fledged monster once a month. It seemed impossible that I would be able to come to Hogwarts. Other parents weren’t likely to want their children exposed to me.”

 

Again, Sirius made the low, angry noise in the back of his throat. 

 

“But then Dumbledore became Headmaster,” Remus continued, “and he was sympathetic. He said that as long as we took certain precautions, there was no reason I shouldn’t come to school.” He exhaled and met Harry’s suspicious eyes. “I told you, months ago, that the Whomping Willow was planted the year I came to Hogwarts. The truth is that it was planted  _ because _ I came to Hogwarts, and this house and the tunnel that leads to it were built for my use.” He surveyed the space for a moment, hating it, hating what he had done to it. “Once a month, I was smuggled out of the castle and into this place to transform. The tree was placed at the tunnel mouth to stop anyone coming across me while I was dangerous.”

 

He looked up at Harry again, and saw that he still had the boy’s full attention. Harry should already know all this, he thought. He should have been there for Harry from the beginning, ever since James and Lily died. It was his fault Harry was in this position.

 

He had failed Harry before, but he would do what he could now. He took a deep breath and plunged onward. 

 

“My transformations in those days were… terrible. It is very painful to turn into a werewolf.” He swallowed hard and felt the shadow of the pain radiate through his limbs. “I was separated from humans to bite, so I bit and scratched myself instead. The villagers heard the noise and the screaming and thought that they were hearing particularly violent spirits. Dumbledore encouraged the rumor.” Remus shook off the thought of the mass memory charm performed without consent, in his name. “Even now, when the house has been silent for years, the villagers don’t dare approach it.”

 

Remus sighed again, and felt his lips twitch up into something resembling a smile. “But apart from my transformations, I was happier than I had ever been in my life. For the first time ever, I had friends, three great friends. Sirius Black --” he nodded towards Sirius, who shifted again -- “Peter Pettigrew, and, of course, your father, Harry. James Potter.”

 

Harry frowned, and Remus swallowed down the memory of gloating that the boy had learned to say “Moony” before “Padfoot.”

 

“Now, my three friends could hardly fail to notice that I disappeared once a month. I made up all sorts of stories. I told them my mother was ill, and that I had to go home to see her. I was terrified they would desert me the moment they find out what I was. But of course they, like you, Hermione, worked out the truth.”

 

He shook his head. That day was still his Patronus memory -- walking into the sunlit dormitory, seeing the three of them lined up, sitting on Sirius’s bed, James trying and failing to contain his grin… 

 

“And they didn’t desert me at all. Instead, they did something for me that would make my transformations not only bearable, but the best times of my life. They became Animagi.”

 

“My dad too?” Harry asked, his eyes widening in an astonishment that seemed to make him forget his fear for a moment. Remus’s heart thudded in his chest. He should know this, the boy should  _ already know this _ , it should never have been kept from him… 

 

“Yes, indeed,” he responded. “It took them the best part of three years to work out how to do it. Your father and Sirius here were the cleverest students in the school--” Sirius snorted “-- and lucky they were, because the Animagus transformation can go horribly wrong, which is one reason the Ministry keeps a close watch on those attempting to do it.” He nodded at Hermione, who was studying him with a sort of grim concentration. “Peter needed all the help he could get from James and Sirius. Finally, in or fifth year, they managed it. They could each turn into a different animal at will.”

 

“But how did that help you?” Hermione asked, frowning.

 

“They couldn’t keep my company as humans, so they kept me company as animals,” said Remus, and shrugged with the knowledge that he would never, ever be able to adequately explain just how much those few years of company had meant to him. “A werewolf is only a danger to people. They sneaked out of the castle every month under James’s Invisibility Cloak, and they transformed. Peter, as the smallest, could slip beneath the Willow’s attacking branches and touch the knot that freezes it. They would then slip down the tunnel and join me. Under their influence, I became less dangerous. My body was still wolfish, but my mind seemed to become less so while I was with them.”

 

“Hurry up, Remus,” Sirius barked as the rat let out a particularly loud squeak.

 

“I’m getting there, Sirius.” Remus clenched his hands into fists in his pockets. “I’m getting there. Well, highly exciting possibilities were open to us now that we could all transform. Soon we were leaving the Shrieking Shack and roaming the school grounds and the village by night. Sirius and James transformed into such large animals, they were able to keep a werewolf in check. I doubt whether any Hogwarts students ever found out more about the Hogwarts grounds and Hogsmeade than we did. And that’s how we came to write the Marauders’ Map, and sign it with our nicknames. Sirius is Padfoot. Peter is Wormtail. James…” he swallowed. “ _ Was _ Prongs.”

 

“What sort of animal--” Harry began to ask, fascinated, and Remus’s heart leapt in his throat. But the boy was interrupted by Hermione. 

 

“That was still really dangerous! Running around in the dark with a werewolf!” she scolded. “What if you’d given the others the slip, and… and bitten somebody?”

 

Remus repressed his wince, and merely nodded. “A thought that still haunts me. And there were near misses, many of them. We laughed about them afterwards. We were young, thoughtless… carried away with our own cleverness.” He freed one hand from his pocket and ran it over his hair, unable, suddenly, to look any of them in the eye, even as he continued with what now felt like a confession. “I sometimes felt guilty about betraying Dumbledore’s trust, of course. He had admitted me to Hogwarts when no other headmaster would have done so, and he had no idea I was breaking the rules he had set down for my own and others’ safety. He never knew I had led three fellow students into becoming Animagi illegally… but I always managed to forget my guilty feelings every time we sat down to plan our next month’s adventure. And I haven’t changed,” he added, feeling his gut twist up in self-disgust.

 

He bit his lip and forced himself to go on. This was his fault, really, all of it, but if they were to give Harry the truth he was owed, Remus had to finish it. “All this year, I have been battling with myself, wondering whether I should tell Dumbledore that Sirius was an Animagus. But I didn’t do it. Why? Because I was too cowardly. It would have meant admitting that I’d betrayed his trust while I was at school, admitting that I‘d led others along with me, and Dumbledore’s trust has meant everything to me.” He shook his head, slowly. “He let me into Hogwarts as a boy, and he gave me a job when I have been shunned all my adult life, unable to find paid work because of what I am. And so I convinced myself that Sirius was getting into the school using dark arts he learned from Voldemort, that being an Animagus had nothing to do with it.” He swallowed hard -- God, if he’d said something earlier, if he’d told the whole story, maybe they would have found Peter even sooner… “So in a way, Snape’s been right about me all along.”

 

“Snape?” demanded Sirius, the name finally breaking through his utter fixation on where the rat twitched in Ron’s pocket. “What’s Snape got to do with it?”

 

Remus exhaled through his nose as he saw the old contempt swell in Sirius’s eyes. “He’s here, Sirius. He’s teaching here as well.” Aware that this was too much to gloss over with Harry and the others, he turned back to them. “Professor Snape was at school with us. He fought very hard against my appointment to the Defense Against the Dark Arts job. He has been telling Dumbledore all year that I am not to be trusted.” Remus shifted his weight, and again hung his head in shame. “He has his reasons. You see, Sirius here played a trick on him which nearly killed him, a trick which involved me--”

 

Sirius snorted, and Remus’s head snapped up. How was it possible -- how was it  _ possible _ , that here and, now after all this, after everything that they had all been through, that Sirius was still unable to just  _ let it go _ ?

 

“Served him right,” Sirius muttered, a smirk twisting up his mouth. “Sneaking around, trying to find out what we were up to, hoping he could get us expelled--”

 

Remus cut him off, turning back to the children. “Severus was very interested in where I went every month. We were in the same year, you know, and we… didn’t like each other very much. He especially disliked James. Jealous, I think, of…” but now wasn’t the time, and Remus had never shared with anyone his suspicions about Snape’s feelings for Lily. “Of James’s talent on the Quidditch field. Anyway, Snape had seen me crossing the grounds with Madam Pomfrey one evening as she led me toward the Whomping Willow to transform. Sirius thought it would be… amusing, I suppose, to tell Snape all he had to do was prod the knot on the tree trunk with a long stick, and he’d be able to get in after me.”

 

Of course, Sirius had not told Snape anything, because he hadn’t been fool enough to think Snape would believe him, but Remus didn’t have the time or energy to go into the intricacies of Sirius tricking Snape into a position to overhear Sirius talking loudly and indiscreetly to some girl he was shagging while Snape was on prefect duties… or the fact that Sirius had put a Memory Charm on the girl later. 

 

“Well, of course, Snape tried it -- if he’d got as far as this house he’d have met a fully-grown werewolf.” Even now, Remus cringed, and felt the phantom pain lace through his body. Harry was still watching him intently, and once again, Remus forced himself to continue. “But your father, who’d heard what Sirius had done, went after Snape and pulled him back, at great risk to his life.” Remus shuddered. God, he could have killed James that night, easily. “Snape glimpsed me, though, at the end of the tunnel. He was forbidden by Dumbledore to tell anybody, but from that time on, he knew what I was.”

 

Harry tipped his head back, understanding blooming in his expression. “So  _ that’s _ why Snape doesn’t like you? Because he thought you were in on the joke?”

 

“That’s right.”

 

Remus snapped his gaze back to the threshold as the rustle he’d thought he’d heard earlier rippled through the room again, and Snape pulled off James’s Invisibility Cloak, his wand drawn on Remus, a terrifying, icy hatred in his eyes.

  
  



	19. The Servant of Lord Voldemort

For a moment, nobody moved. Remus stared blankly at Snape as Snape’s hollow black eyes surveyed the room, a sneer curling up the corners of his mouth. 

 

Then Hermione screamed, and Sirius started forward, his hand twitching towards his waist as if to draw a wand. Remus flung an arm out, catching Sirius across the chest and stopping his movements.

 

Snape ignored them all. He fisted his hands in the folds of the cloak --  _ James’s cloak _ \-- and threw it aside, careful to keep his wand trained at Remus’s heart. “I found this at the base of the Whomping Willow. Very useful, Potter, I thank you,” he said, his voice dripping with a disturbing mixture of contempt and glee. He pointed his wand away from Remus’s chest, and Remus had to fight the urge to raise his hands into the air. 

 

Again, Snape cast his eyes over Harry before looking back at Remus and Sirius. “You’re wondering, perhaps, how I knew you were here?” he asked, baring his yellowing teeth in a triumphant grin. “”I’ve just been to your office, Lupin. You forgot to take your potion tonight, so I took a gobletful along.” Something deep in Remus’s gut lurched at the words, but before he could process them, Snape went on, “And very lucky I did. Lucky for me, I mean. Lying on your desk was a certain map. One glance and it told me all I needed to know.” He shook his hair out of his face, where it had fallen while he tried to recover his breath. “I saw you running along this passage and out of sight.”

 

“Severus--” Remus tried to begin, but Snape cut him off, the manic gleam still lighting up his face. Remus could see it burning in him, the desire to be a hero.

 

“I’ve told the headmaster again and again that you’re helping your old friend Black into the castle, Lupin, and here’s the proof. Not even I dreamed you would have the nerve to use this old place as your hideout--”

 

“Severus, you’re making a mistake,” Remus cut him off. Snape’s hand was beginning to shake, and Remus knew it wouldn't take much for Snape to misfire a curse and hit Harry or the others. “You haven’t heard everything. I can explain -- Sirius is  _ not _ here to kill Harry.”

 

“Two more for Azkaban tonight,” Snape hissed as if Remus had not spoken, and it began to dawn on Remus how very wrong he was, that Snape didn’t give a damn about his students’ safety, that this wasn’t about saving the children at all. They may as well have been nineteen again, on different sides of a war. “I shall be interested to see how Dumbledore takes this. He was quite convinced you were harmless, you know, Lupin. A  _ tame  _ werewolf.”

 

“You fool,” said Remus before he could stop himself, the realization that this was still, even now, about a rivalry that had formed when they were all children, pounding in his temples. Snape was willing to condemn Sirius to death because of a shared contempt between eleven-year-olds. “Is a schoolboy grudge worth putting an innocent man back inside Azkaban?”

 

Snape’s lips pulled back in a snarl, and before Remus could react, coarse ropes were flying from the tip of Snape’s wand. Remus fought against them, but they bound him, and he fell to the ground, landing hard on his shoulder and struggling to breathe against the cord wrapped around his nose and mouth. 

 

He heard Sirius roar in fury and saw him launch himself towards Snape, who pointed his wand squarely between Sirius’s eyes. Remus was terrified for a brief moment that Sirius would not stop, but in the end he stilled, glaring at Snape and breathing hard. 

 

“Give me a reason.” Years of restrained rage pulsed in Snape’s voice, his wand shaking once more. “Give me a reason to do it, and I swear I will.”

 

Remus felt the skin of his wrists chafe as he struggled against the rope. He had to get free -- Sirius didn’t think he had anything to lose anymore, and he would do something, say something, and Snape would--

 

But before any of them could move, Hermione spoke, her voice trembling. “Professor Snape?” she started, hesitant. Remus tried to turn his head so that the could face her, but the ropes were too tight. “It…” Remus heard her take a deep breath. “It wouldn’t hurt to hear what they’ve got to say? Would it?”

 

Snape scoffed. “Miss Granger, you are already facing suspension from this school. You, Potter, and Weasley are out of bounds, in the company of a convicted murderer and a werewolf. For once in your life, hold your tongue.”

 

Remus could almost hear Hermione bracing herself before she tried again. “But if there was a mistake--”

 

And suddenly, Snape’s thin grasp on his control seemed to snap, and he was screaming. “KEEP QUIET, YOU STUPID GIRL! DON’T TALK ABOUT THINGS YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!” In his anger, a few sparks flew out of the tip of his wand, still pointed between Sirius’s eyes, but Sirius did not flinch. Hermione, though, startled back a few steps and reached out to grasp Harry’s sleeve.

 

Breathing hard in satisfaction, Snape turned back to glare at Sirius. “Vengeance is very sweet. How I hoped I would be the one to catch you…”

 

Sirius laughed, but it was a dead sound. “The joke’s on you again,  _ Severus _ . As long as this boy brings his rat up to the castle, I’ll come quietly.”

 

“Up to the castle? I don’t think we need to go that far,” Snape breathed. “All I have to do is call the dementors once we get out of the Willow. They’ll be very pleased to see you, Black. Pleased enough to give you a little kiss, I daresay.”

 

_ No _ . Remus fought harder against the ropes binding him, almost thrashing about in his attempts to get free. Not that,  _ not that _ , Peter was right there, they could end this now, and Remus wasn’t going to lose Sirius again, not to--

 

“You’ve got to hear me out,” Sirius whispered, and ice shot through Remus’s veins at the sound of Sirius begging. “The rat -- look at the rat--”

 

He may as well have remained silent, because Snape was not going to listen to reason. He snapped his fingers, and the ends of the ropes binding Remus flew into his hands. “Come on, all of you,” he bit out at the students. “I’ll drag the werewolf. Perhaps the dementors will have a kiss for him too.”

 

Harry strode to the door, and for one devastating heartbeat, Remus thought the boy was going to comply with Snape, that they had pushed him too far, too fast --

 

But when Harry reached the threshold he turned, blocking it with his body, and faced Snape silently. Remus saw the boy’s throat constrict as he swallowed hard.

 

“Get out of the way, Potter,” Snape spat. “You’re in enough trouble already. If I hadn’t been here to save your skin--”

 

“Professor Lupin could have killed me about a hundred times this year. I’ve been alone with him loads of times, having defense lessons against the dementors,” the boy said quietly, meeting Snape’s eyes. “If he was helping Black, why didn’t he just finish me off then?”

 

A muscle jumped in Snape’s jaw. “Don’t ask me to fathom the way a werewolf’s mind works. Get out of the way, Potter.”

 

Harry glared as he shouted, “You’re  _ pathetic _ ! Just because they made a fool of you in school, you won’t even listen to--”

 

“SILENCE!” Snape screamed, and Harry’s eyes widened in shock. “I WILL NOT BE SPOKEN TO LIKE THAT! Like father, like son, Potter! I have just saved your neck! You should be thanking me on bended knee!” Again, sparks flew from the tip of Snape’s wand, and Remus struggled harder against his ropes, knowing that soon Snape was going to lose whatever thin grip on his self-control he had. “You would have been well served if he’d killed you! You would have died like your father, too arrogant to believe you might have been mistaken in Black! Now get out of the way, or I will make you!”

 

Harry didn’t move, but Remus saw the boy slip a hand into his pocket. 

 

“GET OUT OF THE WAY, POTTER!”

 

Faster than Remus had ever seen Harry move, the boy drew his wand, pointed it at Snape, and shoulted, “ _ Expelliarmus!” _

 

But Harry’s voice wasn’t alone -- red jets of light flew from the tips of Ron’s and Hermione’s wands too, and all three of the charms hit Snape at once. He flew backwards and into the wall, his head making a sickening, dull thump, before he slid to the floor and did not move.

 

Hermione dropped her wand and covered her mouth with shaking hands, staring at Snape’s still, crumpled form. Sirius studied Harry, eyes narrowed as if he wasn’t quite sure what to make of the boy. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he said slowly. “You should have left him to me.”

 

Harry didn’t answer.

 

Shivering, Hermione lowered her hands from her face. “We attacked a teacher,” she chanted, and Remus thought her pupils were dilated. “Oh, we’re going to be in so much trouble…”

 

Remus tugged against the ropes one last time, and Sirius shook himself before kneeling down and untying him. Sirius helped Remus up, and with a nod of thanks, Remus began rubbing the life back into his wrists. He turned to Harry, who was still trying to look anywhere but at him and Sirius. “Thank you, Harry.”

 

“I’m still not saying I believe you,” said Harry, stubbornly.

 

Remus sighed and squared his shoulders. There wasn’t time for this, not anymore. “Then it’s time we offered you some proof. You, boy--” he turned to Ron “--give me Peter. Now, please.”

 

“Come off it,” Ron pleaded, clutching the panicking rat closer to his chest. “Are you trying to say he broke out of Azkaban just to get his hands on  _ Scabbers? _ ” He looked around to his friends for support. “I mean -- okay, say Pettigrew could turn into a rat. There are  _ millions _ of rats! How’s he supposed to know which one he’s after if he was locked up in Azkaban?”

 

It hadn’t occurred to Remus in the haze of everything else. But Azkaban was a fortress, cut off completely from the outside world, and  _ something _ must have happened to make Sirius change his mind after consigning himself to the prison for twelve years. 

 

He turned to Sirius, studying him. “You know, Sirius, that’s a fair question. How  _ did _ you find out where he was?”

 

Something like a smile ghosted across Sirius’s face, and he reached into his tattered robes and pulled out a crumpled piece of newspaper. Remus watched as Sirius smoothed it out before holding it up. It looked to be a clipping from the  _ Daily Prophet _ , featuring the entire Weasley family. Remus hadn’t subscribed to the  _ Daily Prophet  _ in years, so he had no idea what the story was about, but he was able to recognize the fat, sleepy rat resting on Ron’s shoulder in the photo.

 

He looked up at Sirius in awe. “How did you get this?”

 

“Fudge,” said Sirius, smirking. “When he came to inspect Azkaban last year, he gave me this paper. And there was Peter, on the front page -- on this boy’s shoulder. I knew him at once; how many times had I seen him transform? And the caption said the boy would be going back to Hogwarts.” He swallowed hard, the grin fading. “To where Harry was.”

 

“My God,” Remus heard himself say, moving toward Sirius to inspect the photo. “His front paw.”

 

“What about it?” demanded Ron from somewhere behind them.

 

Sirius glanced at him, and at the rat still struggling in his hands. “He’s got a toe missing.”

 

“Of course…” Remus shook his head slowly. “Of course. So simple… so brilliant.” He looked up to meet Sirius’s eyes, which only now seemed to show some small flicker of life. “He cut it off himself?”

 

Sirius shrugged. “Just before he transformed. When I cornered him, he yelled for the whole street to hear that I’d betrayed Lily and James. Then before I could curse him he blew apart the street with the wand behind his back. Killed everyone within twenty feet of himself.” His face twitched, and Remus didn’t want to know what he was remembering. “And then he sped down into the sewer with the other rats.”

 

“Didn’t you ever hear, Ron?” Remus asked slowly, turning back to face Ron and the others. “The biggest bit of Peter they found was his finger.”

 

Ron was already shaking his head. “Look, Scabbers probably had a fight with another rat or something -- he’s been in our family for ages--”

 

“Twelve years?” asked Remus, and Ron fell silent. “Didn’t you ever wonder why he was living so long?”

 

“We’ve been taking good care of him!” Ron insisted. 

 

Remus laughed once. “Not looking too good at the moment, though, is he? I’d guess he’s been losing weight ever since he heard Sirius was on the loose again.”

 

“He… he’s been scared of that mad cat!” Ron retorted, and nodded at the cat in the corner. Remus had barely noticed the animal until now, but there it sat, curled up on the bed, purring contentedly. 

 

Harry’s hand twitched suddenly, and Remus glanced at the boy. Harry didn’t speak, but he was frowning, as if something that Ron had said didn’t quite add up. But before Remus could ask, Sirius spoke again. 

 

“That cat isn’t mad,” he murmured, reaching out to pet its head. Hermione moaned as if in pain. “He’s the most intelligent of his kind I’ve ever met. He recognized Peter for what he was right away. And when he met me, he knew I was no dog. It was a while before he trusted me, but finally I managed to communicate to him what I was after, and he’s been helping me…”

 

“What do you mean?” Hermione whimpered. Remus looked over at her, and she was still clutching Harry’s sleeve.

 

“He tried to bring Peter to me, but couldn’t,” Sirius answered. “So he stole the passwords into Gryffindor Tower for me. As I understand it, he took them from a boy’s bedside table.”

 

_ Neville _ . Remus felt himself nod in understanding. 

 

“But Peter got wind of what was going on and ran for it,” Sirius continued, his voice growing rougher. “This cat -- Crookshanks, did you call him?” He glanced at Hermione, who did not respond, her eyes wide. “He told me Peter had left blood on the sheets. I supposed he’d bit himself. Well, faking his own death worked once--”

 

“And why did he fake his death?” Harry cut in abruptly, and Remus saw Sirius flinch. “Because he knew you were about to kill him like you killed my parents!”

 

Remus’s throat threatened to close up. “No, Harry--”

 

“And now you’ve come to finish him off!”

 

“Yes, I have.” Sirius shot a look of loathing at the rat in Ron’s hands.

 

“Then I should have let Snape take you!” Harry tightened his grip around his wand. 

 

“Harry, don’t you see?” Remus cut in. “All this time we’ve thought Sirius betrayed your parents, and Peter tracked him down. But it was the other way around, don’t you see -- Peter betrayed your mother and father, and Sirius tracked Peter down--”

 

“THAT’S NOT TRUE! HE WAS THEIR SECRET-KEEPER!” Harry screamed as if the words burned his throat. “HE SAID SO BEFORE YOU TURNED UP! HE SAID HE KILLED THEM!”

 

Once more, the bile tore at the back of Remus’s throat. To his left, Sirius swallowed hard, shaking his head, and Remus thought his eyes looked suspiciously bright. “Harry…” he muttered, shaking his head slowly, “I as good as killed them.”

 

Remus sucked in a breath.

 

“I persuaded James and Lily to change to Peter at the last moment, persuaded them to use him as Secret-Keeper instead of me,” Sirius whispered. “I’m to blame, I know it. The night they died, I’d arranged to check on Peter, make sure he was still safe.” He turned slightly towards Remus, but kept his eyes fixed on Harry’s blanched face. “But when I arrived at his hiding place, he’d gone, yet there was no sign of a struggle.”

 

Remus could almost picture it… Sirius, ragged with war as they had all been after three years, appearing in the dark street outside Peter’s little flat, slipping inside, using his key to get in the front door, turning around slowly in the living room, passing from confusion to fear to panic…

 

“It didn’t feel right. I was scared…. I set out for your parents’ house right away. And when I saw their house destroyed, and their bodies… I realized what Peter must’ve done. What I’d done--”

 

His breath hitched, and he ducked away from them all, covering his face with his hands.

 

Rather than reach out to him, Remus clenched his hand into a fist. “Enough of this,” he said, turning back to Ron, low fury pounding in his temples. “There’s one certain way to prove what really happened. Ron, give me that rat.”

 

“What are you going to do with him if I give him to you?” asked Ron, but his grip on the rat was not as strong as it had been before. 

 

Remus drew his wand. “Force him to show himself. If he really is a rat, it won’t hurt him.”

 

For one more brief moment, Ron hesitated. Then, with a deep breath, he held out his hands towards Remus, and the rat cupped in them began to panic. Grimly Remus reached out and took the animal from Ron, ignoring the scratches raining down on his hand and wrist. “Ready, Sirius?” he asked over his shoulder.

 

Sirius did not speak at first, but he scrubbed the back of his hand across his face as he scooped up Snape’s wand. “Together?” he asked Remus.

 

Remus pointed his wand at the thrashing rat, and out of the corner of his eyes saw Sirius do the same. “I think so. On the count of three. One -- two --  _ three! _ ”

 

They cast the hex simultaneously, and the resulting bolt of light made a louder bang than Remus remembered. For a brief moment the rat burned white-hot in his hand, but then Remus dropped him, and the small, twisting form hung suspended in midair for the length of a heartbeat, glowing a brilliant white. But then as the contortions got particularly violent, the rat dropped to the floor, its limbs elongating grotesquely, its head swelling, its body appearing to split--

 

And then there he was. After twelve years, there he was.

 

It was almost as if the moment was a part of someone else’s life, and Remus was just observing it, somehow. But Peter was alive, he was here, and he was clutching at the left sleeve of his robes, as if fearful that someone would try to reveal the skin of his forearm.

 

Remus lowered his wand slightly, studying the shrunken man cowering before him. Peter, somehow, had managed to age worse than Sirius, he observed dispassionately, and was already going bald. His eyes were still small and watery, but all the boyish plumpness had gone from his face, taking with it any evidence of the quick, easy smile. Remus watched as Peter panted, his eyes darting quickly between him and Sirius, and to the only door on the other side of the room. 

 

Remus let out a long, slow breath. “Well, hello, Peter. Long time, no see.” He felt Sirius twitch beside him, and reached a hand out towards him. 

 

“Sirius… Remus…” Peter stuttered, his eyes still moving frantically. “My old friends…”

 

Sirius made to raise Snape’s wand, and reflexively, Remus caught his wrist. It was too soon. Remus still wanted his explanation.

 

As he faced Peter again, Remus caught sight of Harry’s face over Peter’s shoulder. The boy had gone still and cold, and his face was devoid of all expression. 

 

Remus breathed deep again and forced himself to focus on Peter. “We’ve been having a little chat, Peter, about what happened the night Lily and James died. You might have missed the finer points while you were squeaking around down there on the bed--”

 

“Remus!” Peter gasped, shaking in his panic. “You don’t believe him, do you?” He gestured at Sirius, but seemed unable to face him head-on. “He tried to kill me, Remus!”

 

Remus huffed low in the back of his throat. “So we’ve heard. I’d like to clear up one or two little matters with you, Peter, if you’d be so--”

 

“He’s come to try and kill me again! He killed Lily and James and now he’s going to kill me too!” Peter squealed. “You’ve got to help me, Remus!”

 

It was odd, mused Remus. He had never felt this sort of… cold hatred. It was almost freezing his lungs from the inside out. After a whole year of frantic speculation, of swinging wildly from rage to hope and back again, he couldn’t understand the slow, creeping stillness radiating through his body as he finally looked Peter in the eye again. But all he said was, “No one’s going to try and kill you until we’ve sorted a few things out.”

 

“Sorted things out?” Peter repeated, incredulous. His feigned indignation would have been more effective if he had been able to stop himself from, again, darting a glance to the door. “I knew he’d come after me! I knew he’d be back for me -- I’ve been waiting for this for twelve years!”

 

Remus raised an eyebrow. “You knew Sirius was going to break out of Azkaban? When nobody has ever done it before?”

 

Peter’s eyes widened as he retorted, “He’s got dark powers the rest of us can only dream of! How else did he get out of there? I suppose He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named taught him a few tricks!”

 

Sirius began to laugh. It was a horrible rumble, seeming to emanate deep within his gut, and when Remus turned to him, he saw that the laughter reached nowhere near Sirius’s eyes. Again, a chill ran down Remus’s spine. 

 

“Voldemort?” asked Sirius, a terrible grin still dancing around his mouth. “Teach me tricks?” Peter gave a theatrical wince, and Sirius made a low, impatient sound through his nostrils. “What, scared to hear your old master’s name? I don’t blame you, Peter. His lot aren’t very happy with you, are they?”

 

Peter seemed to be genuinely struggling for breath as he tried to mutter “Don’t know what you mean, Sirius--” but Sirius cut him off again, the grin finally fading.

 

“You haven’t been hiding from  _ me _ for twelve years. You’ve been hiding from Voldemort’s old supporters. I heard things in Azkaban, Peter.” Remus swallowed hard as Sirius’s eyes went cold again with remembering. “They all think you’re dead, or you’d have to answer to them. I’ve heard them screaming all sorts of things in their sleep. Sounds like they think the double-crosser double-crossed them, because Voldemort went to the Potters’ on your information, and Voldemort met his downfall there.”

 

Remus frowned. He hadn’t thought of that. 

 

“And not all of Voldemort’s supporters ended up in Azkaban, did they?” Sirius continued, still pinning Peter with his hollow gaze. “There are still plenty out here, biding their time, pretending they’ve seen the error of their ways.” He grinned again, his speculative eyes wild. “If they ever got wind that you were still alive, Peter--”

 

“Don’t know what you’re talking about!” The words left Peter in a rush, sweat pouring down his face as he faced Remus, pleading. “You don’t believe this… madness, Remus--”

 

Remus shrugged a shoulder. “I must admit, Peter, I have difficulty in understanding why an innocent man would want to spend twelve years as a rat.”

 

“Innocent, but scared!” exclaimed Peter, and Remus wondered if he had always been this bad at acting. “If Voldemort’s supporters were after me, it was because I put one of their best men in Azkaban! The spy, Sirius Black!” He pointed dramatically at Sirius, whose face twisted up in loathing.

 

“How dare you?” he asked, and Peter cowered back at his harsh growl. “I, a spy for Voldemort? When did I ever sneak around people who were stronger and more powerful than myself? But you, Peter -- I’ll never understand why I didn’t see you were the spy from the start. You always liked big friends who’d look after you, didn’t you? It used to be us… me and Remus… and James….”

 

Remus closed his eyes, letting the shame wash over him. Yes, they all should have seen it, a long time ago.

 

“Me, a spy,” gasped Peter, wringing his hands once more. “You must be out of your mind -- I never -- don’t know how you could say such a--”

 

“Lily and James only made you Secret-Keeper because I suggested it,” Sirius spat. “I thought it was the perfect plan -- a bluff. Voldemort would be sure to come after me, would never dream they’d use a weak, talentless thing like you.” A muscle jumped in his jaw. “It must have been the finest moment of your miserable life, telling Voldemort you could hand him the Potters.”

 

Remus felt himself shaking his head while he dragged a hand down his face, even as Peter continued to mutter his protestations. Sirius had wanted to paint a target on his back… he had thought he was setting himself up to die for James and his family, and he had done it gladly… 

 

But then, of course he had, the reckless, brave, stupid son of a bitch.

 

Peter’s mumblings were cut across by Hermione’s timid voice. “P-professor Lupin? Can I say something?”

 

Remus looked over at her and tried to smile. “Certainly, Hermione.”

 

“Well…” she swallowed, then took a deep breath. “Scabbers… I mean… this man…” she gestured vaguely in Peter’s direction. “He’s been sleeping in Harry’s dormitory for three years. If he’s working for You-Know-Who, how come he never tried to hurt Harry before now?”

 

“There!” sputtered Peter, pointing dramatically at where Ron was still lying on the bed, hands cradling his broken leg even as he looked at Peter with disgust. “Thank you! You see? Remus? I have never hurt a hair of Harry’s head! Why should I?” he demanded.

 

“I’ll tell you why,” growled Sirius before Remus could answer. “Because you never did anything for anyone unless you could see what was in it for you. Voldemort’s been in hiding for twelve years. They say he’s half dead. You weren’t about to commit murder right under Albus Dumbledore’s nose, for a wreck of a wizard who’d lost all his powers, were you?” Sirius shook his head in something that was almost the old, arrogant disdain. “You’d want to be quite sure he was the biggest bully in the playground before you went back to him, wouldn’t you? Why else did you find a wizard family to take you in? Keeping an ear out for news, weren’t you, Peter? Just in case your old protector regained strength, and it was safe to rejoin him?”

 

Peter seemed to be choking on his own breath as he opened his mouth, then closed it again, panic still dancing in the corners of his eyes.

 

“Er…” started Hermione again, and Remus dragged his gaze away from Peter to look at her. But this time, it was Sirius she was facing. “Mr. Black? Sirius?”

 

Sirius startled slightly and stared at Hermione incredulously, and Remus had to swallow down a bizarre desire to laugh.

 

Hermione went on, hesitant. “If you don’t mind me asking… how did you get out of Azkaban? If you didn’t use Dark Magic?”

 

Peter’s face lit up as he nodded quickly. “Thank you! Exactly! Precisely what--”

 

Remus shot him a glare, and Peter wisely fell silent.

 

Sirius’s brow was knotted as he studied Hermione, almost as if he himself wasn’t sure of his answer. Hermione swallowed hard, and waited. 

 

When Sirius finally spoke, his voice was soft. “I don’t know how I did it. I think the only reason I never lost my mind is that I knew I was innocent. That wasn’t a happy thought, so the dementors couldn’t suck it out of me. But…” he shrugged. “It kept me sane and knowing who I am. It helped me keep my powers, so when it all… became too much, I could transform in my cell. Become a dog. Dementors can’t see, you know…” Remus knew Sirius well enough to sense the shudder he repressed, and his heart lurched. “They feel their way toward people by feeding off their emotions, and they could tell that my feelings were… less human, less complex… when I was a dog. But they thought, of course, that I was losing my mind like everyone else in there, so it didn’t trouble them. But I was weak -- very weak -- and I had no hope of driving them away from me without a wand.”

 

He shook his head, staring off into something that Remus never wanted to see. “But then I saw Peter in that picture,” Sirius went on, almost whispering now. “I realized he was at Hogwarts with Harry… perfectly positioned to act, if one hint reached his ears that the Dark Side was gathering strength again… ready to strike at the moment he could be sure of allies, and to deliver the last Potter to them. If he gave them Harry, who’d dare say he’d betrayed Lord Voldemort?”

 

Sirius shook his head, refocusing on Hermione’s face, rapt with attention. “He’d be welcomed back with honors, so you see, I had to do something. I was the only one who knew Peter was still alive. And it was… it was as if someone had lit a fire in my head, and the dementors couldn’t destroy it. It wasn’t a happy feeling; it was an obsession. But it gave me strength, it cleared my mind. So one night when they opened my door to bring me food, I slipped past them as a dog, and it’s so much harder for them to sense animal emotions that they were confused. I was thin, very thin… enough to slip through the bars.”

 

Again, Remus tried to picture it… a brutally thin black dog, slinking its way through deadened stone corridors, somehow scaling the walls of the fortress to the waves crashing against the rocks below, slipping and sliding….

 

“I swam as a dog back to the mainland. I journeyed north and slipped into the Hogwarts grounds as a dog. I’ve been living in the forest ever since, except…” Sirius turned from Hermione to Harry, whose jaw was still set. But now Remus thought he could see something glistening just on the edge of the eyes the boy had inherited from Lily. “Except when I came to watch the Quidditch, of course. You fly as well as your father did, Harry.”

 

Harry’s throat worked as he swallowed hard, but he held Sirius’s gaze.

 

“Believe me,” Sirius breathed. “Believe me, Harry. I never betrayed James and Lily. I would have died before I betrayed them.”

 

No one moved. Remus did not think anyone breathed. The air seemed to shiver around them.

 

And then Harry jerked his head once. A nod.

 

“No!”

 

Before Remus had time to react, Peter threw himselves to his knees and crawled towards Sirius, his hands clasped in front of him, begging. “Sirius…” he gasped. “It’s me… it’s Peter… your friend -- you wouldn’t--”

 

Snarling, Sirius made to kick him. “There’s enough filth on my robes without you touching them.”

 

Peter recoiled from him and fell towards Remus. “Remus! You don’t believe this! Wouldn’t Sirius have told you they’d changed the plan?”

 

“Not if he thought I was the spy, Peter,” said Remus dryly, remembering all the tense comments, the snide remarks, the suspicious gazes of that last year of the war whenever he had come home from his undercover assignment. “I assume that’s why you didn’t tell me, Sirius?” he added, glancing up at Sirius over Peter’s shoulder.

 

Guilt flickered across Sirius’s face. “Forgive me, Remus.”

 

Remus laughed once. “Not at all, Padfoot, old friend.” Sirius was probably the last person in the room with any cause to apologize for anything, he thought to himself as he shook his sleeves back and drew his wand. “And will you, in turn, forgive me for believing  _ you _ were the spy?”

 

“Of course,” replied Sirius immediately, and this time his smile looked almost honest. “Shall we kill him together?”

 

“Yes, I think so.” Remus nodded. It was finished, now. It was done. James and Lily deserved nothing less than this -- hell, Remus and Sirius deserved nothing less than this. The cold fury was back, filling him up. Remus could splint Ron’s leg, he mused, so that Harry could get his friends out of the Shack. They shouldn’t have to watch this if they didn’t want to--

 

“You wouldn’t!” gasped Peter. “You won’t--” Still on his knees, he darted around to Ron. “Ron, haven’t I been a good friend? A good pet?” his hands scrabbled at Ron’s robes. “You won’t let them kill me, Ron, will you? You’re on my side, aren’t you?”

 

Ron looked as if he was about to gag. “I let you sleep in my  _ bed! _ ” 

 

“Kind boy…” Peter whimpered. “Kind master… you won’t let them do it… I was your rat… I was a good pet…”

 

“If you made a better rat than human,” snapped Sirius, “it’s not much to boast about, Peter.”

 

As Ron dragged his broken leg further up the bed, out of reach of Peter’s grasping hands, Peter turned and crawled toward Hermione. “Sweet girl… clever girl… you won’t let them! Help me--”

 

Hermione stumbled backwards, her back hitting the wall as her lips trembled in horror.

 

Peter, shuddering, finally turned to Harry for the first time. “Harry…”

 

The boy’s face was rigid as he gazed down on Peter.

 

“Harry… you look just like your father… just like him--”

 

“HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO HARRY?” Sirius shouted, his face white with rage. “HOW DARE YOU FACE HIM? HOW DARE YOU TALK ABOUT JAMES IN FRONT OF HIM?”

 

Peter tried his best to ignore Sirius as he crawled towards Harry. “Harry, James wouldn’t have wanted me killed… James would have understood… Harry, James would have shown me mercy--”

 

As one, Sirius and Remus strode forward and dragged Peter away from Harry, who was frozen in place, his eyes blank.

 

“You sold James and Lily to Voldemort.” Sirius’s voice trembled as he looked down at Peter, twitching on the floor, eyes wide with panic. “Do you deny it?”

 

“Sirius, what could I have done?” Peter sobbed, pressing his hands to his face. “The Dark Lord… You have no idea… he has weapons you can’t imagine! I was scared, Sirius, I was never brave like you and Remus and James!” He raised his tearstained face to gaze at them both imploringly. “I never meant it to happen! He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named forced me--”

 

“Don’t lie!” shouted Sirius. “You’d been passing information to him for a year before Lily and James died! You were his spy!”

 

Peter shook his head, frantically, as he stammered, “He was taking over everywhere! What was there to be gained by refusing him?” 

 

“What was there to be gained by fighting the most evil wizard who had ever existed?” Sirius hissed. “Only innocent lives, Peter!”

 

“You don’t understand! He would have killed me, Sirius!” Peter implored. 

 

“THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED!” Sirius’s rage filled every corner of the room. “DIED RATHER THAN BETRAY YOUR FRIENDS, AS WE WOULD HAVE DONE FOR YOU!”

 

There wasn’t really anything more to say, Remus realized in the ringing silence that followed Sirius’s words. He raised his wand and felt, rather than saw, Sirius do the same.

 

“You should have realized that if Voldemort didn’t kill you, we would,” he said, and was surprised by how steady he managed to keep his voice. “Goodbye, Peter.”

 

“No!” shouted Harry.

 

Remus’s head snapped around just in time to see the boy shove himself away from the wall and run forward. Remus watched, stunned, as Harry placed himself between the wands and Peter’s body, breathing hard. “You can’t kill him,” the boy gasped, looking from Sirius to Remus and back again. “You can’t.”

 

Remus stared at Harry, thunderstruck. Beside him, Sirius growled, “Harry, this piece of vermin is the reason you have no parents! This… cringing bit of filth would have seen you die too, without turning a hair. You heard him. His own stinking skin meant more to him than your whole family.”

 

“I know,” panted Harry, scrubbing impatiently at his eyes, knocking his glasses slightly askew. “We’ll take him up to the castle. We’ll hand him over to the dementors, and he can go to Azkaban, but don’t kill him.”

 

“Harry!” gasped Pettigrew, flinging his arms around Harry’s legs. “Thank you -- thank you -- it’s more than I deserve -- thank you--”

 

“Get off me!” Harry recoiled out of Peter’s grip. “I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing it because--” he hesitated, took a deep breath, and plunged on “--because I don’t reckon my dad would’ve wanted them to become killers just for you.”

 

Again, no one moved, and Remus found himself staring at the boy in wonder. Harry’s jaw was set just as James’s had always been after he had made a decision from which he would not be swayed. 

 

Remus looked up and locked eyes with Sirius. Something was shifting in Sirius’s face, softening maybe, and Remus saw Sirius bite the inside of his mouth as they considered each other, and the boy in front of them.

 

_ “I don’t want to stay in hiding, Moony,” James murmured as they both stood over the crib, gazing down at James’s son. “I want to keep fighting. So he doesn’t have to.” _

 

Remus dropped his wand to his side, and Sirius did the same, releasing a long breath as he did so. “You’re the only person who has the right to decide, Harry,” said Sirius slowly. “But think… think what he did.”

 

Harry set his jaw and tipped his chin up in a look so familiar that all the air was knocked out of Remus’s body. “He can go to Azkaban,” the boy repeated, meeting Sirius’s gaze steadily. “If anyone deserves that place, he does.”

 

Remus sighed, shaking his head slowly. Harry had a point, after all. “Very well. Stand aside, Harry.” The boy hesitated for a moment, and Remus held up his hands. “I’m going to tie him up. That’s all, I swear.”

 

Harry moved then, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck as Remus pointed his wand at Peter’s shuddering form and shot coils of rope at him. Once Remus was sure that Peter was well and truly secured, he ran a hand down his own face, finally feeling the exhaustion of the night echo deep within his bones.

 

“But if you transform, Peter, we  _ will _ kill you,” Sirius said grimly, still pointing his wand at Peter. “You agree, Harry?”

 

Harry paused for a moment, then nodded, dropping his hand to his side.

 

“Right,” said Remus, suddenly flooded with an overwhelming desire to just be done with it, to be out of this building, to see Sirius and Ron get some medical attention. “Ron, I can’t mend bones nearly as well as Madam Pomfrey, so I think it’s best if we just strap your leg up until we can get you to the hospital wing.”

 

This time, Ron nodded and made no move to stop Remus as Remus stepped forward, wand raised. Remus conjured a splint and watched it wrap the leg up tightly. He didn’t dare do anything more with a break that severe, especially after Sirius had thrown his weight across it while trying to get at the rat. Remus gripped Ron’s upper arm and helped him to stand, supporting Ron while Ron tested the splint. Ron gingerly shifted his weight, and nodded. “That’s better. Thanks.”

 

“What about Professor Snape?” Hermione asked timidly, studying Snape’s unmoving form that still lay across the bed. 

 

Sirius snorted, but Remus ignored him as he leaned over Snape and checked his pulse. “There’s nothing seriously wrong with him. You were just a little… overly enthusiastic,” he assured Hermione as he straightened up. “But he’s still out cold. Er -- perhaps it will be best if we don’t revive him until we’re safely back in the castle.” A fully conscious Snape was the last thing Remus wanted to deal with after everything they had all just been through. “We can take him like this.” He pointed his wand at Snape and muttered “ _ Mobilicorpus _ ,” and they all watched as Snape’s body was hoisted into midair. Remus picked up James’s cloak from where Snape had dropped it and tucked it securely into his pocket. 

 

“Two of us should be chained to this,” Sirius added, kicking Peter’s bound form. “Just to make sure.”

 

“I’ll do it,” said Remus immediately, as it was more likely than not that Sirius would find some reason or other to kill Peter before they got him to the castle. 

 

But he was surprised when Ron said, “And me,” and limped his way forward. Just hours ago, Remus mused as Sirius conjured thick manacles with Snape’s wand, Ron had spat the word “werewolf” at him as if it were a slur.

 

Remus sighed and looked around at them all one last time, and at the room they were in. It was over now, finally. They would all get justice. After all this time. Harry was still pale and determined, but looked calmer than he had in perhaps all the time that Remus had known him.

 

Hermione’s cat, which Remus had barely noticed up until that point, leapt off the bed and trotted to the threshold. Remus took this as his cue, and, keeping his wand trained on Peter, followed his lead out the door.


	20. The Transformation

The procession back up the tunnel was… odd, to say the least. Remus’s left hand was chained to Peter’s right, and Ron’s right hand was chained to Peter’s left. Remus was careful to keep his wand trained on Peter’s chest. In addition to the chains, there was a rope tied loosely around Peter’s ankles -- he could walk, but not very fast. 

 

Ron was pale and sweaty as he limped along the tunnel, but Remus knew better than to ask him how he was doing. Ron’s jaw was set and determined, and it almost seemed to Remus as if Ron was personally offended by the fact that his rat had been a Death Eater.

 

Peter seemed to hesitate as they approached a bend in the tunnel, and Remus jerked on the chain. “One wrong move, Peter,” he warned, dragging him forward. 

 

“Remus… please…” Peter whimpered, looking up at Remus with pleading eyes. “Not Azkaban… it’s terrible…” 

 

“Didn’t you let Black rot in there for twelve years?” huffed Ron as he tried to keep up. Warmth bloomed in Remus’s chest as he looked Ron over. Ron’s eyes were still stubbornly fixed front. “You’re getting off easy,” he added. “So shut it.”

 

Peter fell silent after that, save for a few more panicked whines. Behind them, Remus could hear a series of casual scrapes and bumps as Sirius carelessly floated Snape along behind them. The low sounds of Sirius and Harry’s voices were floating forward too, but Remus couldn’t make out the words. 

 

Although he still kept his wand fixed on Peter, Remus allowed his mind to drift back to the Shrieking Shack. Harry had stopped them, Remus mused. Sirius was right -- Harry was the only person who had the right to decide whether Peter lived or died, and Harry had chosen to spare him. Because Harry thought that James would not have wanted Remus and Sirius to become murderers. 

 

Harry couldn’t remember James, not really. There was no way. He had been too young. And yet… he was right. 

 

_ Sirius shifted in his seat beside Remus. “Then what’s the point? What are we here for?” he demanded. “If not to kill the bastards?” _

 

_ James answered him before Dumbledore could. “We’re not here to kill them, Padfoot. We can’t just…” he trailed off and ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “We can’t go into this thinking that we have to kill as many of them as possible for this to work. That’s them. That can’t be us. It can’t be.” _

 

When they reached the mouth of the tunnel, Hermione’s ginger cat, with its bottlebrush tail held high, scampered up through the hole by the knot in the roots. Immediately, the rustling sound of the swinging branches ceased, and Remus could only assume that the cat had touched its paw to the knot.

 

“Here--” Remus boosted himself about halfway up the opening, his movements restricted with his arm still chained to Peter’s, and grabbed Ron’s elbow. Ron let Remus help him out of the tunnel, but sat down hard on the ground beside the tree’s roots, white and panting. With much less care, Remus hoisted Peter the rest of the way out as well. 

 

It was fully dark out, and the sky was covered in a thick scud of clouds. But the air was clear, crisp -- summer was coming. A few windows up in the castle glowed, jewel-like, casting patches of gold onto the grass. 

 

Sirius levitated Snape’s unconscious form up through the mouth of the tunnel, and Remus stepped back to give it room. Hermione surfaced next, pale but composed, and gave Remus a small smile. 

 

Then came Harry. His hair was even less tidy than usual, and dirt streaked his face, but there was a light in his eyes that Remus had never seen before. The boy looked… happy. He looked  _ happy _ . He too grinned at Remus, who smiled back, before turning and watching Sirius finally make his way back into the open air.

 

Sirius’s face was also lit by a grin, and Remus’s breath caught in his throat -- Sirius seemed ten years younger, as if he were alive again. But rather than take the time to ask, Remus merely clapped Sirius on the shoulder before they all set off again, making their way across the darkened grounds to the castle’s main entrance, the only door likely to still be unlocked at this time of night.

 

Ron’s breathing was harsh in the darkness, but he wasn’t complaining, and stubbornly kept pace with Remus. Peter staggered along between them, letting out the occasional moan of terror or pain. They were about halfway across the grounds when Peter tripped, threatening to topple Ron with him.

 

Remus roughly dragged Peter back upright by the chain. “One wrong move, Peter,” he threatened, taking a moment to press the tip of his wand into Peter’s chest. Remus wasn’t about to  jeopardize the smiles on Sirius and Harry’s faces, not for anything--

 

A cloud shifted overhead. Their whole party was suddenly bathed in the weak, watery light of the moon.

 

Remus froze, clenching his fist around his wand.  _ No. _

 

He hadn’t taken the Wolfsbane tonight -- and he was chained to Ron -- and Harry and Hermione were right there--

 

He was aware, on some level, of his limbs beginning to shake. Fire, hot and quick, laced through his veins, curling in tendrils around his joints. He could feel his ribs begin to fragment--

 

With his last moment of clarity, he jabbed his wand at the cuff around his wrist and gasped out, “ _ Diffindo!” _ He flung himself away from Ron -- and away from Peter, but if this was what had to be done-- 

 

He roared out in agony as the bones in his arms splintered, piercing his skin-- he had forgotten this, he wasn’t prepared for it, the months of the potion had numbed him--

 

The wolf thought he heard Sirius shout something, but his vision tinted red, and the world around him blurred as he shook apart. He could smell it -- human flesh -- 

 

He turned, and there, feet away from him, were two humans linked together--

 

Before he could do anything, a storm of black fur tackled him, snarling. The wolf howled in anger, swiping at the great dog that had gotten in its way, but the dog knocked him off balance. The wolf pivoted, hissing, clumps of grass flying from beneath his paws. He faced the dog, who was standing, hackles raised and a growl dancing about his lips, blocking the wolf’s access to the humans. 

 

Yowling, the wolf launched himself at the dog. There were humans there, right there, and he wasn’t going to let -- He wrapped his forelegs around the dog’s middle and laid thick scratches down his back. The dog howled in pain, but recovered enough to clamp its jaw down on the wolf’s shoulder. The wolf fell back with a whimper, but pivoted to attack the dog again. 

 

Just beyond them, there was a burst of light, and the wolf turned just in time to see one of the humans fall over and not move. Snapping his jaw at the convenient prey, the wolf sprang forward, only to have the dog ram into him from the side yet again. The wolf swiped his claws across the dog’s muzzle--

 

“No!” shouted a familiar voice from behind them.

 

The wolf turned and saw a human -- a boy -- Harry -- point his wand at the other human and shout a spell -- Harry --  _ Harry _ \--

 

The wolf howled out in agony and ripped himself away from the dog. He flung himself back from them, from all of them, and galloped into the forest. He had to get away -- he had to get out.

 

The blue-black of the grass was a blur beneath him and his own breath was loud in his ears as he sped towards the confines of the forest. The savory, tempting smell of human flesh was fading behind him, but still he drove himself onward -- away -- away -- 

 

The dense purple of the forest enveloped him, welcoming him home, but he did not slow. His claws scraped against the forest floor as he barreled through the foliage, catching sight of the raised roots just soon enough to dodge them. He buried himself amongst the trees, travelling so far, so fast, that the sounds of the humans were deadened to his wolf’s ears. 

 

He finally stopped, panting, when he had no idea where he was. He paced a circle on the forest floor, restless, snarling at a cobweb that caught on his tattered ear. His chest burned -- with exertion, with hatred, he wasn’t sure anymore. 

 

The wolf remembered things differently than Remus did, and it was distorted -- the dog, the humans, the pain of the claws slicing across the fur on his chest. 

 

He could feel his heart pounding beneath his ribs, and it was too much -- all too much -- and he threw his head back and howled, a sound long and loud enough to shake the birds from the branches of the trees that reached up above him.

 

_ “What the fuck, Sirius!” James shouted, pounding his fist into the door that he had just flung open. Peter followed James in, and over their shoulders, Remus could see where Sirius had stood from his perch on the edge of his bed in the Gryffindor dormitory.  _

 

_ Sirius’s hands clenched into nervous fists, but his gaze slid over James and Peter to Remus, who hadn’t yet come in off the stairs. “Moony--” _

 

_ “What were you thinking?” James demanded, advancing into the room and running his hand through his hair. “Trying to get Snape to see Remus transform? Why in the name of fuck--” _

 

_ “It was for laughs!” Sirius sputtered, and only now did Remus enter the room, pulling the door shut behind him. He didn’t want James’s voice to wake anyone. The pearly light of the rising sun slowly crept across the room, and when it touched Sirius’s face, Remus saw that Sirius was ashen. “I just… nobody was supposed to get hurt!” _

 

_ James swatted a book off of his nightstand and onto the floor, and Remus winced at the clatter. “He saw, Sirius. He saw Remus transform. How could you do that?” _

 

_ Sirius opened his mouth, then closed it. Glaring, James barreled on. “How is it that you’re not understanding this? Do you know what he could do with that information? Do you have any idea of the damage he can cause?” _

 

_ Oh. Exposure, Remus thought, the word drifting through the fog that immersed his brain as he turned to stare blankly out the window. That part hadn’t even occurred to him. All he remembered, the only image that was playing itself for him again and again, was the wolf’s claws curled out, reaching for Snape, wanting to tear into the human flesh-- _

 

_ “You’ve given him everything he needs to ruin Remus’s life.” _

 

_ “It was never going to come to that!” Sirius protested. “I was just… I was talking to Marlene where I knew Snape would hear, ‘cause I know he’s always trying to get us into shit, and I said that I was… that it would be bad if someone were to follow us down and ruin the hiding spot!” _

 

_ “Why would you do that?” James bellowed, and Peter took an involuntary step back from him.  _

 

_ But even though all the blood drained from Sirius’s face, he held his ground. “To scare him,” he answered quietly. “He deserves it for all the hell he’s put us through--” _

 

_ At that, Remus scoffed. The room fell deathly silent behind him. “Really? For the hell Snape’s put us through, he deserved to have a werewolf kill him?” _

 

_ “You wouldn’t have,” said Sirius, shocked. “You would never. You’re -- you’re Moony. You’re the one with the moral compass.” _

 

_ “You don’t get to decide that,” Remus snapped, turning to face them all again. “You can’t predict a werewolf’s behavior, and you can’t act like you can say for sure what I will or won’t do.” _

 

_ The smell of Snape’s flesh… the sound of James’s human heartbeat when he had transformed, so close to where the wolf was standing, hackles raised….  _

 

_ “You used me,” hissed Remus, and whatever Sirius saw in his face caused him to wince. “I’m the one who’s going to suffer for this, Sirius. Thank you for proving to the whole school that I’m not to be trusted around--” _

 

_ A timid knock sounded against the door, and Remus abruptly fell silent. The four of them stared at each other for a moment, not speaking, until the knock sounded again, louder this time. Peter, who was closest, glanced at James before reaching over and turning the handle.  _

 

_ Lily poked her head around the doorway, hesitant. Her green eyes darted from one of them to the next, and her brow furrowed, but Remus was relieved when she didn’t ask.  _

 

_ Instead, she held up a small scroll of parchment. “Dumbledore tried to send this owl to you, James,” she said, holding it out to him. “But the owl couldn’t find you, so Dumbledore sent it to me instead.” _

 

_ James took it with a muttered word of thanks and ripped it open. Remus watched as his hazel eyes slid back and forth across the few neatly written lines. “Excellent,” he bit out, looking up to scowl at Sirius. “Really perfect. Dumbledore wants to see us. All four of us.” _

 

_ The bottom seemed to fall out of Remus’s stomach, and he closed his eyes. This was it -- he was about to be expelled -- he was going to be exposed, forced out of Hogwarts, forbidden from mixing with normal wizards ever again --  _

 

_ James sighed, and Remus opened his eyes again at the sound. “Thanks, Evans,” James muttered to her, before crossing the room to stand before Remus. “I have your back,” he promised, making sure Remus was meeting his eyes. “Whatever he says. I have your back, yeah?” _

 

_ Remus tried to swallow, despite how dry his throat had become. “Yeah.” _


	21. The Letter

The sun was just barely emerging over the horizon when Remus groaned his way back into consciousness. 

 

He blinked slowly, feeling the fallen pine needles scrape against his skin. A light breeze rushed through the trees, and he winced as it danced across the fresh scratches littered across his back. He was in the Forbidden Forest, he was almost entirely sure, but… why?

 

The muscles along his spine screamed in protest as he rolled onto his back, wincing at the feel of some small pebbles making their way into the lacerations. As he stared up at the latticework of tree branches above him, he wracked his brains, trying to remember how he had wound up here, lying on the forest floor, his trousers in tatters against his skin, claw marks littering his flesh. He had been in his office… he had pulled out the map, because… because… 

 

He froze, and the air left his body in a rush. Sirius.

 

Remus bolted upright, looking frantically around at the shadowy trees, the memory of the night flooding back. Sirius… and Peter… and Harry… and Ron, chained to Remus when he transformed… 

 

He tried to scramble upright, breathing hard, but a sharp hiss to the side caught his attention. He whirled around on his knees, only to lock eyes with Hermione’s cat. 

 

They stared at each other. The cat’s squashed nose twitched, its ginger bottlebrush tail flicking back and forth. As Remus watched, the cat reached its paw out and nudged something lying in the dirt in front of it. Reluctantly, Remus glanced down, and saw his own wand lying on a patch of moss.

 

His eyes darting warily back to the cat, which regarded him with an impassive look on the flattened face, Remus crawled forward and snatched up his wand. The cat appeared to nod in satisfaction before springing up and trotting away from Remus. He watched it go, bemused, before he swallowed hard. He had to get back to the castle -- he had to find Sirius, he had to know if Ron and the others were all right -- 

 

“ _ Point Me _ ,” he muttered, laying his wand flat in his palm and watching it spin to point north. Taking his bearings, he began to walk quickly towards what must have been the edge of the forest -- in the same direction that the cat had gone. He felt light-headed and feverish, but he swallowed hard and forced himself to keep moving. 

 

The rising sun was just beginning to gild the sweeping grass of the lawn when Remus reached the edge of the forest. A hundred yards away, the Whomping Willow stood still and silent. And there, a few feet away from it -- Remus squinted -- he thought he could make out a few shreds of tattered fabric lying on the ground. Again, he swallowed hard. “ _ Accio. _ ”

 

Immediately, the shreds flew into the air and silently zoomed across to the grounds to Remus. He caught the torn wizard’s robes and frantically felt about in the pockets, breathing a sigh of relief when he pulled out James’s Invisibility Cloak. Out of habit, muttered a quick fabric mending charm and absently watched the robes knit themselves back together. He shrugged back into them and dragged the Cloak over his shoulders, ensuring that he was completely hidden before he began walking as quickly as he could back to the castle, ignoring the dying flames in his joints. 

 

The large oak doors to the entrance hall were unlocked, unusual for this early in the morning, but it did not occur to Remus to question this as he almost ran across the hall and took the marble staircase two steps at a time. He began to sprint as he headed in the direction of Dumbledore’s office, the questions buzzing around his brain, panic creeping in at the edges. 

 

He was paying so little attention to where he was going that he rounded a corner too fast and slammed into a suit of armor. The clatter echoed like shattered glass down the stone corridor, and Remus was ready to brush past it and keep running when a voice shouted out behind him. “Halt! Who goes there? Who disturbs the peace of this morning?”

 

Remus almost scoffed impatiently and kept moving, but he hesitated. Sir Cadogan had by now proven himself to be a shameless gossip, and it was probably in Remus’s best interests to be as informed as possible before he burst into Dumbledore’s office. Slowly, he turned and removed the cloak. “It was me.”

 

“Aha!” roared the little knight, brandishing a sword, causing the nuns into whose painting he had burst to cower back against the frame. “Professor Lupin! Appearing out of nowhere as if he were a ghost! State your business here, sir!”

 

Remus beat down the instinct to roll his eyes. “I’m on my way to see the headmaster, Sir Cadogan. About the business with Sirius Black.” He paused, and continued slowly, “I don’t suppose that you, in your bravery, saw or heard anything that would allow me to present myself as well as possible to the headmaster?”

 

“Oho!” exclaimed Sir Cadogan, waving his sword high in the air. One of the nuns called out in disapproval, but he ignored her and pointed at Remus with an armored hand. “I did indeed, my good sir! It is my sad duty to inform you that the murderer and traitor Black escaped from the Ministry’s clutches once again!”

 

Remus’s heart beat wildly in his chest, and he could feel the pulse thundering in his neck. “Did he? Does anyone know how he did it?”

 

Sir Cadogan stuck his sword down into the wooden floor of the painting and leaned against it as he gesticulated wildly. “Indeed no, my good sir! There are no clues, save for the absence of a hippogriff condemned to death!”

 

Remus jerked his head back in shock. Hagrid’s hippogriff? But that execution had been all but guaranteed...

 

“And it appears as though Black slipped through the clutches of one hundred dementors!” Sir Cadogan blustered onward, “They set upon him, but they retreated! And no one knows wherefore!”

 

At that, Remus froze. Sirius hadn’t had a wand. And there was no way that either Ron or Hermione would be able to conjure a Patronus of any kind. Which had to mean…

 

“Your esteemed colleague, the Professor Snape, singlehandedly brought Black and the children up to the castle, but it was after Black was secured under lock and key that he vanished!” Sir Cadogan shook his head in dismay. “The good Sir Snape somehow believes that young Potter and his friends aided Black! Which would be impossible, as I have it on good authority that the children were ensconced in the Hospital Wing through the whole night!”

 

“His friends?” Remus asked tightly. “All three of them? They’re all alive?”

 

“Indeed yes,” puffed Sir Cadogan. “My dear friend Hippocrates watched them from his own painting. He said that young Master Weasley had a broken leg, but Lady Pomfrey mended him with very little trouble.” 

 

Remus exhaled, nearly lightheaded in his relief. He hadn’t hurt Ron. Ron was all right. Ron had suffered nothing worse than a broken leg.

 

But the relief was short-lived. He could have killed Ron, easily. Or worse, he could have bitten him. He could have bitten any of them. He would have, if it hadn’t been for Sirius.

 

“But I do believe that the headmaster is in his study,” Cadogan went on. “And I have no doubt he would be delighted to see you, my good sir!”

 

“Right -- yeah--” Remus muttered vaguely, dragging the Cloak back up over his head. But he was no longer going to Dumbledore; there was no point, and he needed to master himself, to come to terms with the equal parts of relief and shame flooding his body.

 

Sirius had escaped. Ron was alive. Harry was safe.

 

And yet… 

 

If it hadn’t been for Remus, if it hadn’t been for what he was… the thought pounded through his brain as he mounted the stairs to the third floor corridor. If it hadn’t been for him, if he hadn’t transformed, Peter would have been taken into custody. Sirius would have been cleared… he wouldn’t have had to run again… 

 

No doubt Harry and his friends had had to risk their lives to help Sirius escape. Remus shook his head in disgust. How many times was he going to endanger the boy’s life? A hundred dementors… 

 

His office was still when he finally reached it, the map spread out across his desk, just as he had left it. He snorted at the sight of a goblet of Wolfsbane Potion, long since gone cold, beside it. If Snape had just brought it with him down to the Shrieking Shack…

 

Remus shook himself. No point in dwelling, not anymore.

 

His bones ached, and he could feel the burn where the dirt from the forest floor had crept its way into the welts all over his body. Wincing, he slowly made his way into his washroom, and managed to pull off his clothing and step into the shower. The water burned in the open cuts, and his shoulders screamed in protest whenever he tried to raise his arms, but he managed to get clean and get out.

 

He had just managed to shrug into a clean set of robes when there was a frantic pounding on his office door. Warily, he picked up his wand and crossed the office, opening the door just a crack.

 

Cedric Diggory’s slightly panicked face stared back at him. “Sir. We need to talk.”

 

“Cedric?” Bewildered, Remus stood back and opened the door the rest of the way. Cedric rushed in, followed closely by Astoria Greengrass and both Weasley twins. Remus stared around at all of them while Fred shut the door. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

 

Cedric opened his mouth, but then closed it and looked over at Astoria, his face solemn. Astoria took a deep breath, and said, in a grave, quiet voice, “Sir… Professor Snape came into the Slytherin common room before breakfast this morning. Called everyone down.”

 

Remus felt himself descend into stillness, certain of what was coming next. “And?”

 

Astoria looked as if she would cry. “He told us, sir. He told everyone. About you.”

 

The room was quiet as Remus tucked his hands into his pockets. Slowly, he wandered over to the window behind his desk. The sun had fully risen now, and the entire surface of the lake glowed yellow and warm. “I see.”

 

“Sir, tell us what to do,” he heard George say from somewhere behind him. “Should we… can we get a petition together? For Dumbledore? For the board of governors?”

 

“We can talk to the other students,” volunteered Cedric, speaking faster than Remus had ever heard him before. “Maybe… stop them from telling their parents at least until exam scores come out? You have to have gotten us a higher batch of scores than anyone ever has -- at least higher than Lockhart, right? That has to count for something, right?”

 

“And it’s not like anything has ever happened!” said Fred, exasperated. “No one has ever gotten hurt! It’s all been fine! It’s not even that big of a deal!”

 

Remus bowed his head. Fred’s brother had almost died the night before, because of Remus. But he couldn't bring himself to say the words. Fred -- and George, and the rest of the Weasley family, and all their friends -- would find out soon enough, he was sure.

 

Slowly, he turned back to face them, trying not to see the frantic determination in their faces. “Thank you, all of you. For letting me know. You should all go down to breakfast.”

 

“What?” snapped Cedric. “Sir, no! Tell us how we can help you!”

 

Remus shrugged and smiled sadly. “There’s nothing to help, I’m afraid. But I do appreciate the warning.”

 

“But… Snape broke the law!” sputtered Astoria. “It’s against the law to disclose someone’s lycanthropic status to a third party! That has to count for something!”

 

Remus shrugged. “Maybe it will. But it won’t change the fact that quite a few parents, including a few of yours, won’t want me teaching their children.” He avoided Cedric’s gaze, but could almost feel Cedric stiffen. “Now, really, you should all go down to breakfast. I can’t imagine it going well for you if anyone finds out that you came to speak to me.”

 

“Sir…” George shifted his weight from foot to foot.

 

“Please.” Remus met his eyes, then those of his brother. “Please go. It has been… more of a joy than I can say, teaching you all. But now you need to go.”

 

Fred looked ready to keep arguing, but George knocked him gently on the elbow, and jerked his head towards the door. Fred glanced from his brother to Remus, scowling, but said, “Fine. But I’m going to fight anyone who ever tries to turn this into something it’s not, sir. I swear.”

 

Remus tried to smile. “Given that for the moment, I still teach here, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. Have a good holiday, you two.”

 

“I hate this,” muttered Fred, but he slouched to the door, George in tow. They both glanced back, and Remus lifted a hand to wave at them. Then they were gone.

 

Remus turned to Astoria, who had been unable to stop a few tears from escaping. “Sir… I’m sorry…” 

 

“It’s not your fault,” Remus assured her, smiling. “I really do appreciate you telling me, Astoria. Thank you.”

 

She pressed her hands to her mouth and took a deep breath, then darted forward. Faster than Remus could react, Astoria quickly hugged him around the middle, then released him. “Thank you, sir. This year was…” 

 

Remus patted her shoulder. “I agree. I’m proud of you, Miss Greengrass. Now really, it will go worse for you than the others if Professor Snape discovers that you’ve spoken to me.”

 

She nodded, brushing at her eyes, and then quickly ducked out the room, as if she was afraid she would keep crying if she lingered.

 

Remus breathed out slowly, and finally turned to Cedric. For a moment, they just looked at each other.

 

Cedric broke the silence, his voice heavy with guilt. “Professor Lupin, I’m so sorry.”

 

Remus leaned back against his desk and surveyed the boy in front of him. “Don’t be. It’s not your fault.”

 

Cedric swallowed hard, his eyes dangerously bright. “But…”

 

“Cedric, if you learn nothing else from me, know this,” Remus said quietly. “We’re not our fathers. All we can do is leave their world better than we found it. You’re not responsible for what he’s done.”

 

Cedric nodded furiously, breathing in hard through his nose. “I know. I just…” 

 

“You’re a good man,” Remus told him. “The rest is just details.”

 

“So are you,” Cedric mumbled, before taking another deep breath. He crossed the office floor and held out his hand. Filled with a rush of gratitude, Remus reached out and shook it.

 

“I look forward to watching you help change the world,” he grinned at Cedric, who scoffed. 

 

“Thanks.” He turned for the door, then paused. “I’ll talk to my dad.”

 

Remus shrugged. “I appreciate that, but--”

 

“No buts,” said Cedric fiercely. “I’ll try, sir. I promise.”

 

At that, Remus couldn’t speak. He merely nodded, but he thought Cedric understood. With one last, forced smile, Cedric left.

 

Remus closed his eyes and tipped his face back, feeling the sunlight creep in through the windowpane and warm his back. Well, better sooner rather than later, he supposed, and circled his desk -- the teacher’s desk -- to take a seat in the chair. His hands were surprisingly steady as he opened a drawer, pulled out a clean scroll of parchment, loaded his quill with ink, and began to draft his resignation letter.

 

***

 

It always surprised him when he was packing, how many belongings he really had.

 

Perhaps it was because he never really threw anything away, Remus mused, stacking three books together and lowering them into his magically expanded trunk. He could never afford to buy anything new, after all, so all he had left was the ability to hold on what he had collected over a lifetime of constant movement. 

 

Something twitched in the corner of his eye, and he glanced down at the map that he had not yet been able to bring himself to put away. The castle was almost entirely empty -- it was the last Hogsmeade weekend of the term, and teachers and students alike were probably enjoying the freedom and fine weather. 

 

Well, most of the students.

 

Remus watched quietly as the cluster of dots labelled  _ Harry Potter, Hermione Granger _ , and  _ Ron Weasley _ descended the steps from the entrance hall to the grounds and meandered off towards the lake. It seemed to him that they were moving slowly, and he wondered if Ron was favoring his leg. The cluster finally came to a halt near the beech tree on the shores of the lake.

 

After only a brief moment of internal debate, Remus decided that he wasn’t going to seek out Harry. He had sent his resignation letter to Dumbledore via owl post, and had gotten a response a half hour later the same way. Dumbledore had said that he was sad to see Remus go, but thought his reasons valid. He had also asked Remus to have no further contact with Harry, to protect the boy from even more media scrutiny. Remus didn’t like it, but he understood. Harry had always been safer without Remus in his life anyhow.

 

He moved to nestle a stack of jumpers into the trunk as well, but paused when another dot approached those of the students on the shore of the lake. The dot labelled  _ Rubeus Hagrid _ strolled over to them, but after what could have been only a few minutes of conversation, the dot marked  _ Harry Potter _ began moving quickly back up the lawn and towards the castle.

 

Remus sighed. Hagrid couldn’t have been expected to keep the news of Remus’s resignation to himself, he supposed. He forced himself to take a deep breath, to prepare. 

 

Harry quickly found his way to Remus’s office, and Remus smiled as he heard the knock at the door. “I saw you coming,” he said at the sight of Harry’s anxious face. 

 

The boy looked… fine, Remus noted. A little tired, maybe, but otherwise no worse for wear for all the things he had seen the night before. “I just saw Hagrid, and he said you’d resigned,” Harry said in a rush. “It’s not true, is it?”

 

Remus sighed. “I’m afraid it is.” He pointed his wand at his desk drawers and directing the contents into his trunk, avoiding Harry’s eyes. He didn’t know what he had been expecting, now that Harry knew that Remus had been James’s friend, but maybe some part of him had hoped….

 

“ _ Why _ ?” demanded Harry. “The Ministry of Magic don’t think you were helping Sirius, do they?”

 

Remus glanced up sharply, then strode out from behind his desk and shut the door behind Harry, who looked up at him sheepishly.

 

“No,” answered Remus. “Professor Dumbledore managed to convince Fudge that I was trying to save your lives.” He thought back to the paragraph at the end of the letter he had gotten back from Dumbledore in response to his resignation, the paragraph that warned him to lay low in the Muggle world, because he may no longer be safe around wizards who would link him to Sirius. But even that hadn’t been enough to satisfy Snape. “That was the final straw for Severus. I think the loss of the Order of Merlin hit him hard. So he… accidentally let slip that I am a werewolf this morning at breakfast.” 

 

Whatever his own feelings towards Snape, Harry still had to survive under him for another four years. 

 

“You’re not leaving just because of  _ that _ ?” Harry said, incredulous. 

 

Remus couldn’t help but smile. At least the boy had no context for what it was to be hated this badly, by this many. Remus didn’t want him to ever learn.

 

“This time tomorrow,” he said, “the owls will start arriving from parents. They will not want a werewolf teaching their children, Harry. And after last night, I see their point,” he added, the smile fading. “I could have bitten any of you. That must never happen again.”

 

“You’re the best Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher we’ve ever had!” Harry protested. “Don’t go!”

 

Remus shook his head, his throat tight. He didn’t want that to be all he was to Harry -- a former teacher. He had been there when the boy had taken his first steps. One of Harry’s first words had been “Moony.” He had held Harry in his lap at Order of the Phoenix meetings. 

 

But none of that mattered, he reminded himself, as he went back to emptying his desk drawers. Not anymore. 

 

He glanced up, and Harry was scowling down at the floor, his brow furrowed as it always was when he was deep in thought. Another grin crept across Remus’s face. Yes, James would be proud of the boy. “From what the headmaster told me this morning,” he said, gesturing at the letter on his desk, “you saved a lot of lives last night, Harry. If I’m proud of anything I’ve done this year, it’s how much you’ve learned.” He exhaled slowly, remembering his promise to Lily, to teach Harry to defend himself. “Tell me about your Patronus.”

 

Harry’s gaze darted up, and his eyes widened. “How did you know about that?”

 

Remus shrugged. “What else could have driven the dementors away?”

 

“Oh. Err…” Harry scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Well I… me and Hermione took her Time-Turner back to get Buckbeak -- Hagrid’s hippogriff -- so Sirius could fly away on him--” Remus nearly choked at the idea that this had seemed like Albus Dumbledore’s best idea, but Harry didn’t notice “--and I saw… where the dementors were surrounding me and Sirius and ‘Mione on the edge of the lake, and…” He hesitated. “You’re going to think I’m stupid.”

 

“I very much doubt that,” said Remus quietly, certain now where this was going.

 

Harry shifted his weight from foot to foot. “It’s just that… when we were all lying on the ground by the lake, and the dementors were there, and I saw a Patronus coming towards us and drive them off… it ran back to the person who had cast it, and I thought… I could have sworn it was my dad.”

 

Remus balled a hand into a fist, and braced it against the desk top to steady himself. “I see.”

 

“So I kind of… when I saw the dementors surrounding us on the ground… I ran to where I thought I saw him,” Harry said in a rush. “But the dementors kept getting closer to us, and he wasn’t coming…” Remus’s chest tightened. “And I just realized that maybe… it was me?”

 

He shrugged and looked up at Remus, who could not speak. 

 

Shrugging, Harry went on, “So I just… I kind of realized that I had already done it before -- in the past -- whatever -- and I said the incantation. And it was a  _ real  _ Patronus, Professor Lupin. It was a stag.” He paused and smiled. “So the nickname made sense, finally.”

 

Remus grinned past the dangerous prickling in the backs of his eyes. “Yes, your father was always a stag when he transformed,” he managed to choke out. “You guessed right. That’s why we called him Prongs.”

 

He needed a moment to look away from him, from this boy who looked so much like his father that he had fooled even himself. Remus busied his hands with throwing the last of his books into his case, then straightened up and pulled James’s Cloak from his pocket. It was only right that Harry have it back. “Here. I brought this from the Shrieking Shack last night. And…” he only paused for a moment before folding up the map on his desk. “I am no longer your teacher, so I don’t feel guilty about giving you back this as well. It’s no use to me, and I daresay you, Ron, and Hermione will find uses for it.”

 

Harry pocketed both the Cloak and the map and grinned up at Remus. James’s mischievous grin. “You told me Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs would’ve wanted to lure me out of school. You said they’d have thought it was funny.”

 

Remus snorted. “And so we would have. I have no hesitation in saying that James would have been highly disappointed if his son had never found any of the secret passages out of the castle.

 

Harry laughed and opened his mouth as if to say something else, and Remus wondered if it would be so bad, really, if they sat down together, and Remus told Harry everything he remembered about James--

 

There was a knock at the door, but Albus Dumbledore did not wait for Remus to answer before he turned the knob and stepped inside. 

 

The headmaster glanced at Harry before turning to Remus. “Your carriage is at the gates, Remus.”

 

Remus sighed. It was better this way, he reminded himself. “Thank you, Headmaster.” He picked up his case and secured the grindylow’s empty tank under his arm before he turned to the boy. “Well… goodbye, Harry,” he said, forcing a smile. “I feel sure we’ll meet again sometime. Headmaster, there is no need to see me to the gates. I can manage.”

 

He avoided Dumbledore’s eyes, and was secretly relieved when Dumbledore didn’t comment on his promise to see Harry again. 

 

“Goodbye, then, Remus,” said Dumbledore, and extended his hand so that Remus had no choice but to shake it.

 

Remus moved to the door, but couldn’t help but take one last look back at Harry. James and Lily would be proud, he reminded himself. That was what mattered.

 

He left the office quickly, and looked neither left nor right as he moved through the classroom and emerged into the corridor. The vibrant sunlight of summer streamed in through the windows, and Remus strode through the patches of light and shadow, swallowing down his grief. 

 

He had lived through worse, he reminded himself. He would live through this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one more chapter after this


	22. A Second Visitor

Remus got the job at the pub in Cardiff the same way he’d gotten all the other pub jobs before then -- he used a quick glamour charm on his face, faked a few references, and charmed his way into working a test shift behind the bar. It had always been easier to blend into the scenery in bigger cities, and Cardiff was the capital of Wales, with a relatively high tourism rate, so he wasn’t concerned about anonymity. 

 

The pub was in Roath, just north of the city center, and as June meandered towards a close, it grew thick and sweaty with tourists. Vaguely, Remus wondered what there was to see. It couldn’t be the old castle; the British Isles were littered with old, broken-down stone monstrosities just like it. The owner of the pub had also grumbled to Remus about how the city’s population was swelling faster than the infrastructure could keep up. Remus wasn’t sure if that was a dig at the fact that he himself was a transplant into the neighborhood, and that most of the growth came from Somali Muslim or South Asian immigrants. Either way, he didn’t respond. 

 

When he had been a child, he and his parents had lived in Gwynedd, in the north of Wales, for a few years, and Remus had picked up a little Welsh from his school mates. This served him well with the pub’s patrons, who would get over their initial reaction to Remus’s black skin if he could laugh at the jokes they told in their native tongue. It wasn’t as hard to settle in here as he had thought it would be, and for that he was grateful. 

 

After all, he could use the distraction of familiarizing himself with yet another city. He worked a double shift on the last day of the Hogwarts term, refusing to wonder who had won the House cup, or what marks Harry and his friends had gotten in their other classes. He still refused to take out a subscription to the  _ Daily Prophet _ , and so he did not know how quickly the story of his lycanthropy had spread, or what kind of coverage Sirius’s new escape had gotten. He didn’t want to know, he told himself. It was better this way.

 

“Oy,” said a voice behind him, from down the bar. Remus startled and glanced up at Liara, the girl working the bar with him that night. She swept her electric green braids out of her face, and the stud in her nose caught the light as she asked, “D’you mind going back there and tapping a new keg of Otley? I’m too short to reach.”

 

Remus snorted, but moved past her anyway, tossing over his shoulder, “You are not. You just don’t want to do it,” as he went. Liara shrugged, winking, and turned to a new patron. 

 

As he descended into the cool dark of the back room, Remus couldn’t help but smile to himself. Liara had been the first person in Cardiff to strike up a conversation with him, and even after a week they were already great friends. More than once, drunk patrons had asked them if they were related, which always led to Liara slamming her palms flat down on the bar top and demanding to know if they thought there were only two black people in Wales. Her mouth would always twitch with a repressed smile as she watched their eyes widen as they tried to stammer out of what they had said.

 

When he emerged back behind the bar, he observed the dining room, which was only about a third full. “Quiet, isn’t it?” he asked Liara, who had just finished making change for a couple on their way out the door. 

 

“It is, yeah.” She glanced around before leaning back against the ice machine. “Not that we ever do a roaring trade on Wednesday nights, but you know. Not like this, not usually.”

 

Remus nodded at her easy familiarity with the space. She was a student at Cardiff University, but only part-time, as she took care of her grandmother too. She had said all of this to Remus very matter-of-factly, and added that tending bar worked well for her because she could take evening shifts after her Nan had gone to bed. 

 

One of the barmaids sidled up to them and slid her empty tray across the bar towards them. “‘Nother round for those blokes in the corner,” she said, rolling her eyes. 

 

“They bothering you?” Remus glanced over at them. They had the look of a bunch of young men whose fathers had gotten them management positions in the city government, however ill-qualified they may have been. There were four or five of them, laughing uproariously, not ordering enough food to keep up with all the beer they were pouring into their mouths.

 

Tess, the barmaid, shrugged. “Nothing I can’t handle, Remus. But thanks.”

 

He nodded, placing two new full glasses down on the tray. “I’ll keep an eye out. And you let me know if you want me to step in, yeah?”

 

Tess smiled quickly and gave a quick salute before she hefted the tray back up and strode briskly back to her table. Silently, Remus and Liara watched as Tess dropped off the drinks, refusing to engage in conversation before she moved on to check on another table. 

 

Liara sighed, loud and long. “I hate men.”

 

Remus nodded. “Reasonable.”

 

The rest of the night passed without incident, and Tess and the other barmaid left when their shifts ended at closing time. Remus looked around at the clean bar before reaching out to stop Liara from picking up a bus bin. “Head out. I have this.”

 

She paused, but couldn’t hide the hope in her face. “Are you sure? It’s no trouble.”

 

Remus nodded to where a young man smoking a cigarette in the pale glow of a street lamp was visible through the window. “Your boyfriend has been waiting for you for almost twenty minutes now. I have this.”

 

Liara clapped her hands together once and smiled. “Thank you! I owe you one, really.”

 

Remus shook his head. “Go on.”

 

Liara darted to the back room, and emerged moments later with her coat and bag. She shrugged the bag’s strap over her shoulder while waving at Remus, and she called out “I’ll see you tomorrow!” before shoving the door open. The boy smiled, stubbing out his cigarette, and took her coat from her with one hand while he wrapped the other arm around her shoulders. Remus smiled to himself as he scooped up a rag and began to wipe down the bar top.

 

It had been quiet -- just Remus and the radio turned down low -- for a while before he heard the door open behind him. He didn’t look up from the till he was counting out. “Last call was half an hour ago.”

 

“Better just give me a half pint, then.”

 

Remus’s head jerked up. Sirius wouldn’t be this stupid, not now, not when he had just barely gotten away —

 

But when Sirius slid onto the stool closest to where Remus was standing, Remus couldn’t help but smile, even as he slowly shook his head. “You’re an idiot.”

 

Sirius shrugged. “An idiot who hasn’t been in a bar since I was twenty-one. Come on, Moony. Pour one out.”

 

Remus surveyed him for another moment, eyebrows raised. Sirius was dressed as a Muggle -- dark jeans and a black hooded sweatshirt that looked almost new -- and he was growing his beard back. He’d had a wash and a trim, and he almost looked his real age. When Sirius nodded expectantly towards the taps, Remus sighed, slammed the till shut, and reached for a glass. “Lager?”

 

“Ale, if you have it.”

 

Remus nodded and filled a pint glass for Sirius before pouring himself a stout. He slid Sirius his glass, managing a grin when Sirius lifted it in a toast. For a moment, he debated whether he wanted to ask how Sirius had found him, but the question died on his lips. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said instead as Sirius drank.

 

Setting the glass back down on the bartop, Sirius shrugged. “This is the fucking middle of Muggle Cardiff, Moony. I think I’m fine. But I’m about to leave, yeah.”

 

Remus nodded, hiding his disappointment in a sip of his own beer. “Where are you going?”

 

“Can’t tell you,” said Sirius frankly. “S’not safe for you. But I’ll be all right.”

 

Remus leaned forward, bracing his elbows on the bartop. “This is insane.”

 

“A bit, yeah.” Sirius downed the rest of his beer, and automatically Remus took his glass and refilled it. “But I’ll figure out a way to keep in touch. With you and with Harry.” He paused, staring down into the amber liquid before him. “He’s something else, that kid.”

 

“He is,” Remus agreed quietly. “He’s lived through more than anyone should ever have to at his age. Or ever.”

 

Sirius nodded. “They’d be proud of him. Prongs and Evans.”

 

“And they’d be proud of you,” said Remus, watching him carefully. “Lily would call you an idiot, too, but still.”

 

Sirius laughed once. “Yeah, she would.” He raised his eyes to meet Remus’s gaze again, and lifted his glass a second time. “The Potter family.”

 

“The Potter family,” Remus echoed, and they both drank.

 

It was quiet then for a moment, save for the hum of the ice machine. Remus traced his finger through the condensation that his glass left on the gleaming wood of the bartop. “Where’s the hippogriff?”

 

Again, Sirius laughed. “Heard about that, did you? He’s tethered in a meadow about twenty miles away. I Apparated. He’s fine.” He shook his head. “A couple of thirteen-year-olds using a bloody Time Turner to go back in time, steal a condemned hippogriff, and aid and abet an enemy of the state. Incredible.”

 

Remus smiled down at the bartop. Yes, it was incredible. 

 

“What’re you going to do now?” Sirius asked after another long moment, and Remus looked up to see Sirius watching him.

 

Remus shrugged. “This. It’s what I was doing after the war, mostly. And now… well, the whole wizarding world knows what I am.”

 

Sirius huffed. “I can kill Snape, you know. I’m pretty good at being on the run by now.”

 

“You can’t kill Snape,” Remus retorted automatically, and the moment felt so normal, so familiar, that he caught his breath. He met Sirius’s eyes and saw something like grief flit over his friend’s face too.

 

Sirius set his glass down. “Will you at least keep in touch with Harry?”

 

Remus shook his head. “Dumbledore told me not to.”

 

“Who gives a shit—“

 

“ _ I _ give a shit, Padfoot,” Remus sighed. “Dumbledore gave me a chance. Twice, actually. It’s safer for Harry to not have contact with a known werewolf. I can accept that. It won’t be forever; I’ll see him again.”

 

“You’d better,” growled Sirius. “No one’s been looking out for that kid, Moony — it’s not your fault, and I know that, but in the space of three hours, he went from trying to beat the shit out of me to agreeing to live with me! I know a runner when I see one, and this kid—“

 

“I know!” snapped Remus. Sirius fell abruptly silent, and Remus forced himself to take a deep breath. “I’ll… I’ll do what I can, Sirius. I promise. But it’s not safe for either of us — for me or for Harry — for him to be seen spending time with me.”

 

They glared at each other for a moment, and then Sirius sighed. “You’re right. You’re always right. Doesn’t that ever get old?”

 

Reluctantly, Remus chuckled.

 

Sirius glanced at the clock on the wall and sighed. Remus swallowed hard. Sirius had been here too long already, he knew it, and yet — he had just gotten Sirius back.

 

“Here.” Sirius reached into his pocket and withdrew a wad of bills. “For the drinks. And for staying open late.”

 

Remus eyed the money that Sirius had shoved into his hands. “There’s got to be at least a thousand pounds here, Sirius.”

 

“Yeah?” Sirius shrugged as he stood. “Well, staying open late is a huge imposition, isn’t it? It’s only fair.”

 

A lump formed in Remus’s throat, and he tried to swallow it so he could speak. “Thank you.”

 

“Don’t thank me,” Sirius shrugged. “Hermione’s cat — Crookshanks — he’s got to be part Kneazle. Bloody useful. Made it in and out of Gringotts all by himself. Got the goblins to convert it to Muggle money with no trouble. Hell, even managed to grab my wand from where my mother had stashed it after Crouch gave it to her.”

 

They stood, staring at each other, for a long moment. Sirius still looked like his father, Remus realized, but if Orion were alive today, Remus doubted he would recognize his son.

 

Remus strode around the bar until he was face to face with Sirius again, and pulled him into a hug. He felt Sirius’s hand fist against his shoulder blade, and he squeezed his eyes shut. “Write me as soon as you get where you’re going,” he mumbled, and he felt Sirius nod.

 

“I will. I promise.”

 

Reluctantly, Remus stepped back, taking one last moment to study Sirius. “Stay safe.”

 

“You too,” said Sirius, his voice hoarse suddenly, and he reached out to grip Remus’s shoulder. “Moony, if you need anything — anything at all —“

 

Remus waved him off. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine. Take care of yourself, Padfoot.”

 

“I will.” Slowly, Sirius backed away from Remus, drawing his hood up over his head. With one last faded version of his old grin, Sirius touched a hand to his eyebrow in a salute and slipped out the door into the night.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stay tuned for Goblet of Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks :)


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